Job 5:21 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Thou shalt be hid, &c.— If at any time a fire shall rage, thou shalt be hid; nor shalt thou fear imminent ruin. Eliphaz seems to hint at those wicked persons who have been struck with fire from heaven, such as the inhabitants of Sodom. Houbigant. Heath renders the verse, From the scourge of detraction thou shalt be hidden; yea, thou shalt not fear the destroyer when he cometh. See Psalms 31:20. One observes upon the former clause of this verse, "This is here reckoned by Eliphaz among the acts of God's omnipotency in the protection of those whom he favours; as if it were a more supreme degree of his power than a deliverance from famine, war, or death, and much easier to escape those than this. Indeed the tongue has so many ways of doing mischief, so much art to wound, that no man can put himself into a secure posture of defence against it, nor without the immediate shelter of God himself be screened from it. He, and he only, can hide us from the scourge of tongues, or wipe out the marks of that scourge, and deliver us from all-devouring words."