For he wounds, but he binds up; he shatters, but his hands heal.
Eliphaz, in this concluding paragraph of his discourse, gives Job (what he himself knew not how to take) a comfortable prospect of the issue of his afflictions, if he did but recover his temper and accommodate himself to them. Observe, I. The seasonable word of caution and exhortation that he gives him (Job 5:17): "Despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty.
Commenting on Job 5:17-27
For he maketh sore, and bindeth up,.... Or, "though he maketh sore, yet he bindeth up" (d); as a surgeon, who makes a wound the sorer by probing and opening it, to let out the matter and make way for his medicine, and then lays on the plaster, and binds it up: so God causes grief and puts his people to pain, by diseases of...
he maketh sore, and bindeth up-- (Deu 32:39; Hos 6:1; Sa1 2:6). An image from binding up a wound. The healing art consisted much at that time in external applications.