Job 5:20 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

In famine; which Job might be thought to fear, as being so poor that he needed his friends contributions for his relief. From death; from that terrible kind of death. These things he utters with more confidence, partly because the rewards or punishments of this life were more constantly distributed to men in the Old Testament according to their good or bad behaviour than now they are; and partly because it was his particular opinion, that great afflictions were the constant fruits and certain evidences of a man's wickedness; and consequently, that great mercies and deliverances should infallibly follow upon true repentance and godliness.