Eliphaz the Temanite seems to think that the sufferings of men are due to their sins.  He says: 

Even as I have seen, they that plough wickedness and sow wickedness, reap the same. By the blast of God they perish, and by the breath of his nostrils are they consumed.  The roaring of the lion, and the voice of the fierce lion, and the teeth of the young lions are broken. The old lion perisheth for lack of prey, and the stout lion’s whelps are scattered abroad.”

Certainly, this seems to be a picture of a great event.  Here again the fire of God, that consumed Job’s sheep and servants, is at work; even the fiercest of the wild beasts are suffering:  the old lion dies for want of prey, and its young ones are scattered abroad.

Eliphaz continues: 

“In thoughts, from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth on me, fear came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones to shake.  Then a spirit passed before my face, the hair of my flesh stood up.”

A voice spake: 

“Shall mortal man be more just than God?  Shall a man be more pure than his Maker?  Behold he put no trust in his servants, and his angels he charged with folly:  How much less them that dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, which are crushed before the moth. They are destroyed from morning to evening; they perish forever without any regarding it.”

{p. 284}

The moth can crush nothing, therefore Maurer thinks it should read, “crushed like the moth.”  “They are destroyed,” etc.; literally, “they are broken to pieces in the space of a day."[1]

All through the text of Job we have allusions to the catastrophe which had fallen on the earth (chap. v, 3): 

“I have seen the foolish taking root:  but suddenly I,” (God,) “cursed his habitation.”

“4.  His children are far from safety,” (far from any place of refuge?) “and they are crushed in the gate, neither is there any to deliver them.

“5.  Whose harvest the hungry eateth up, and taketh it even out of the thorns, and the robber swalloweth up their substance.”

That is to say, in the general confusion and terror the harvests are devoured, and there is no respect for the rights of property.

“6.  Although affliction cometh not forth of the dust, neither doth trouble spring out of the ground.”

In the Douay version it reads: 

“Nothing on earth is done without a cause, and sorrow doth not spring out of the ground” (v, 6).

I take this to mean that the affliction which has fallen upon men comes not out of the ground, but from above.

“7.  Yet man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward.”

In the Hebrew we read for sparks, “sons of flame or burning coal.”  Maurer and Gesenius say, “As the sons of lightning fly high”; or, “troubles are many and fiery as sparks.”