to turn · verb, qal imperfect, 2nd person masculine singular
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Job 15:15 Behold, he putteth no trust in his saints; yea, the heavens are not clean in his sight.
Job 4:18 Behold, he put no trust in his servants; and his angels he charged with folly:
Job 15:8-10 Hast thou heard the secret of God? and dost thou restrain wisdom to thyself?
Isaiah 41:21-23 Produce your cause, saith the LORD; bring forth your strong reasons, saith the King of Jacob.
Isaiah 41:1 Keep silence before me, O islands; and let the people renew their strength: let them come near; then let them speak: let us come near togeth…
Ephesians 1:1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus:
Hebrews 12:1 Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so ea…
Deuteronomy 33:2-3 And he said, The LORD came from Sinai, and rose up from Seir unto them; he shined forth from mount Paran, and he came with ten thousands of…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Job 5:1-5
A very warm dispute being begun between Job and his friends, Eliphaz here makes a fair motion to put the matter to a reference. In all debates perhaps the sooner this is done the better if the contenders cannot end it between themselves. So well assured is Eliphaz of the goodness of his own cause that he moves Job himself to choose the arbitrators (Job 5:1): Call now, if there be any that will answer thee; that is, 1. "If there be any that suffer as thou sufferest. Canst thou produce an instance of any one that was really a saint that was reduced to such an extremity as thou art now reduced to? God never dealt with any that love his name as he deals with thee, and therefore surely thou art n…
Call now, if there be any that will answer thee,.... That is, call upon God, which, if seriously, and not ironically spoken, was good advice; God is to be called upon, and especially in times of trouble; and invocation is to be made in faith, in sincerity, and with fervency, and to be accompanied with confession of sin, and repentance for it; and sooner or later God hears and answers those that call upon him; but Eliphaz suggests, that if Job did call upon him, it would be in vain, he would not hear him, he going upon the same maxim that the Jews did in Christ's time, "God heareth not sinners": John 9:31; or call upon him to give him an oracle from heaven, to favour him with a vision and rev…
1 Call now, - is there any one who will answer thee?
And to whom of the holy ones wilt thou turn?
2 For he is a fool who is destroyed by complaining,
And envy slays the simple one.
3 I, even I, have seen a fool taking root:
Then I had to curse his habitation suddenly.
4 His children were far from help,
And were crushed in the gate, without a rescuer;
5 While the hungry ate his harvest,
And even from among thorns they took it away,
And the intriguer snatched after his wealth.
The chief thought of the oracle was that God is the absolutely just One, and infinitely exalted above men and angels. Resuming his speech from this point, Eliphaz tells Job that no cry for help can avail him unless he su…
The Church Fathers
"Call for your help; maybe someone will answer. God responds to those who are pure in his eyes.
Through these words Eliphaz shows the excellence of God. Since it was natural for Job to examine his own situation on the ground of his personal reflections, observe what Eliphaz says: "Do not speak so." God is great. He does many things that we don't understand. Our lowliness is profound.… Whatever God might do, he does well.
Call now, if there be any that will answer thee. For Almighty God often passes by the prayer of that man in his trouble, who slights His precepts in the season of rest. Hence it is written, He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be abomination. Now for us 'to call,' is to beseech God with humble prayer; but for God to 'answer,' is to vouchsafe an accomplishment to our prayers; and so he says, Call now, if any will answer thee. As though he said in plain words, 'However thou mayest cry out in thy distress, thou hast not God answering thee, in that the voice in tribulation findeth not Him, Whom the mind in tranquillity disregarded. Where he adds in yet further derision, And turn thee to some one of the Saints? As though he said in scorn, 'The Saints too thou canst never obtain for abettors in thy distress, whom thou wouldest not have for companions in thy mirth. And after this mocking he forthwith adds the sentence.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
The angels (literally the holy ones), probably a reference back to 4:18, are called “holy ones” because of their proximity to God, not because they were morally perfect (15:15; Dan 4:14; 8:13; Zech 14:5).
Rashi on Job 5:1
Now call Up to here are words of prophecy. From here on, he returns to his rebuke: Cry out to your utmost, who will answer you?
To which of the holy ones [i.e., of the angels] who decrees this upon you will you turn, to strive with him?
