5 Yes, God is mighty, but he despises no one;
he understands all things.
6 He does not keep the wicked alive,
but he gives justice to the oppressed.
7 He does not withdraw his gaze from the righteous,
but he seats them forever with enthroned kings,
and they are exalted.
and they are exalted.
8 If people are bound with chains
and trapped by the cords of affliction,
9 God tells them what they have done
and how arrogantly they have transgressed.
10 He opens their ears to correction
and tells them to repent from iniquity.
11 If they listen and serve him,
they will end their days in prosperity
and their years in happiness.
and their years in happiness.
12 But if they do not listen,
they will cross the river of death
and die without knowledge.
and die without knowledge.
13 Those who have a godless heart harbor anger;
even when God binds them, they do not cry for help.
14 They die in their youth;
their life ends among male cult prostitutes.
Commentary
(the following is from Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary, 1706 -- www.christianity.com)
"Elihu here shows that God acts as righteous Governor. He is always ready to defend those that are injured. If our eye is ever toward God in duty, his eye will be ever upon us in mercy, and, when we are at the lowest, will not overlook us.
God intends, when he afflicts us, to discover past sins to us, and to bring them to our remembrance. Also, to dispose our hearts to be taught: affliction makes people willing to learn, through the grace of God working with and by it. And further, to deter us from sinning for the future.
It is a command, to have no more to do with sin. If we faithfully serve God, we have the promise of the life that now is, and the comforts of it, as far as is for God's glory and our good: and who would desire them any further? We have the possession of inward pleasures, the great peace which those have that love God's law."
