איוב, פרק ה׳, פסוק כ׳

Divine protection often reveals itself precisely during humanity's most severe crises. The primary approach among commentators is that God provides direct rescue from the specific dangers of the time. During a period of famine, God saves a person from starvation through careful providence, ensuring they retain enough food and supplies in their home even while the rest of the world faces a severe shortage [תקות אנוש]. In a similar way, when war breaks out, God steps in to shield the individual from death at the hands of enemy forces [מצודת דוד, ביאור שטיינזלץ].

A more surprising perspective suggests that the disasters act as the actual instruments of rescue. Instead of saving a person from the hardship, God uses the hardship to save the person. For example, God might bring a famine upon an individual to force them to leave a country destined to be destroyed by an earthquake. In this scenario, the lack of food itself redeems the person from death. War functions in the exact same way. The sudden outbreak of a conflict forces a person to arm themselves for battle. Because they are carrying a weapon, they are unexpectedly saved from a private assassin waiting in ambush, a survival that never would have occurred during peacetime when they were unarmed [מלבי"ם].

A unique historical interpretation connects these events directly to Job's own experiences in Egypt. According to this approach, the rescue from famine refers to Job surviving the devastating plagues of hail and locusts, which completely destroyed the Egyptian harvest. The rescue from war points to the internal battle of the Egyptian firstborns shortly before the Exodus, when the firstborns violently rebelled against the leadership that refused to free the Israelites. Although Job served as a senior advisor to Pharaoh and did not advise him to release the people, God still guarded him and spared him from death during that violent internal uprising [אלשיך].