Eliphaz, look me in the eye! This is your friend Job! I am NOT SOME SORT OF THEOLOGICAL LAB RAT! I have lost my kids, my employees, my businesses, my health, the friendship of God, and now I seem to have lost the love and support of my friends!
Job 6:1-3 “Then Job answered, ‘Oh that my vexation (or anguish, grief, impatience, sadness) were actually weighed, and laid in the balances together with my calamity (or troubles, misery)! For then it would be heavier than the sand of the seas, therefore my words have been rash.’”
Notice the little word "Oh" and the punctuation used at the end of the first sentence (!). You can sense Job’s passion and the turmoil of his heart. "LOOK AT ME ELIPHAZ! I may be repulsive to look at, but I am not a fool, I AM GRIEVING!" Throughout this passage (and actually throughout the entire book of Job) a lot of exclamation points will be used.
Calamity has engulfed Job. (But not just any calamity, the Hebrew word used here indicates a life-shattering catastrophe). In Eliphaz’s mind, suffering and sin are inexorably linked together. The ONLY explanation? “Job, there MUST be sin in your life!” In 5:2 Eliphaz had warned, “Only fools lose there temper.” Understandably, Job furiously objects and erupts with a very emotional defense. “Get a big scale,” Job instructs, “Hold it – get a really big scale. On one side pile up my grief and sorrow and everything that’s happened to me. Put my 10 kids’ names and the loss of fellowship with God on the very top. Now on the other side pile up all of the sand from a thousand beaches. My grief, my pain, my turmoil, my vexation would far outweigh it all!”
6:4 “For the arrows of the Almighty are within me; their poison my spirit drinks; the terrors of God are arrayed against me.”
The “terror of God” probably refers to the same sickening dread that the occupants of a besieged city would feel. In 5:17 Eliphaz had warned his friend Job not to “despise the discipline of the Almighty.” (As per Eliphaz: All of Job’s losses, problems and grief were the discipline of God). But Job replies to his friend, “What do you mean that I shouldn’t despise the discipline of the Almighty? The Divine Archer is riding by on his chariot and is pummeling me with poisonous arrows, and you call it discipline? Come on Eliphaz!”
Remember how the Shepherd’s Psalm reads in Psalm 23:5, “Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies”? That line is meant to bring comfort. But when Job says, “…the terrors of God are arrayed against me,” he could be saying that the Almighty has set a table before him, but its main dish is terror!
6:5 “Does the wild donkey bray over {his} grass, or does the ox low over his fodder?”
“Eliphaz, if a donkey has a right to bray (a long, loud, irritating cry) and an ox has a right to low when they are in trouble, don’t I have a right to cry out loudly? The farmer or rancher doesn’t get mad at his animals when they do that – He understands them and knows how to interpret those cries. Job is saying to his friend, “God knows how to interpret my ‘braying!’ Eliphaz, you might be irritated by my cries, but God isn’t!” What is implied here is that if Eliphaz’s teaching was “good or worthwhile food,” Job wouldn’t be crying out so harshly!
6:6-7 “Can something tasteless be eaten without salt, or is there any taste in the white of an egg (or the slime of the purslane)? My soul refuses to touch them; they are like loathsome food to me.”
The Amplified Version puts verse 7 this way, “These afflictions my soul refuses to touch! Such things are like diseased food to me (sickening and repugnant)!” The version called The Message puts it, “Do you see what God has dished out for me? It’s enough to turn anyone’s stomach! Everything in me is repulsed by it – it makes me sick.” And the New Living Translation has it this way, “My appetite disappears when I look at it; I gag at the thought of eating it!”
The “white of the egg” (some versions have the “slime of the purslane”) probably refers to any sort of “Fear Factor” or “Survivor” type of food (like a handful of night crawlers or a 6” long African slug) that just about makes you hurl or gag even thinking about having to eat it. So I think what Job is saying here could be one of two things: Either that the argument of his friend Eliphaz is like some really nasty/disgusting food that just can’t be swallowed; or that his sufferings are so reprehensible they are like trying to eat a bowl of maggot-filled macaroni salad. (I know that’s pretty gross, but that’s exactly what Job is saying. And I hope you weren’t just then in the process of eating any macaroni salad :>).
6:8-9 "Oh that my request might come to pass, and that God would grant my longing! Would that God were willing to crush me; that He would loose His hand and cut me off!”
Job really anticipates that he will die at any time. The word “longing” is used in 4:6 but is translated “hope”: "Is not your fear {of God} your confidence and the integrity of your ways your hope?” I think what Job is saying to Eliphaz is this, “My friend, you say that IF I were a man of integrity I would have hope…but my only hope or longing right now is to die!”
One thing to remember throughout these discussions – Job never ever contemplates suicide (self-murder)! FIA writes: “So completely is God’s sole power over life and death recognized that the thought of suicide as a remedy for life’s ills never enters the book of Job.”
6:10 “But it is still my consolation, and I rejoice in unsparing pain, that I have not denied the words of the Holy One.
“I rejoice in unsparing pain.” It’s easy to divorce a theological discussion from the reality of Job’s pain and suffering. We need to regularly remind ourselves that Job and the three comforters are not sitting in a Sunday School classroom or some pastors’ seminar. Job is sitting on a pile of rotting garbage racked with chronic, unbearable pain. Yet in the midst of that he can say, “God, I have not denied Your Word!” What a man of tremendous integrity. As I write this I have the TV on in the background and am halfway listening to one of the news channels about the vote on health care. Would that Congress was filled with people of Job’s character -- men and women that would hold fast to their integrity despite the greatest of pressures! (Unlike Bart Stupak, who seems to have just folded like a tent on his staunch Pro-Life stance.)
FIA writes concerning verse 10, “Job is not aware of any failure on his part. If so, God owes it to Job to release him from his agony as a tribute to his faithfulness…Job sees death as his hope and the only escape from excruciating pain."
6:11-13 “What is my strength, that I should wait? And what is my end, that I should endure? Is my strength the strength of stones, or is my flesh bronze? Is it that my help is not within me, and that deliverance is driven from me?”
Eliphaz urged Job to repent and hold out for the renewal that would come (5:17-27). Job’s reply? “I AM NOT MADE OUT OF STONE! I AM NOT MADE OUT OF BRONZE! I can’t hold out that long! I am spent!”
The version called The Message puts it this way, “Do you think I can pull myself up by my bootstraps? Why, I don’t even have any boots!”
Spiritual Application: First, we shouldn’t be surprised or taken aback when a friend (who perhaps feels like a cloud of poisonous arrows are raining down upon them) wants to vent. At those times we should listen long and talk short. Secondly, Job was suffering from chronic and unbearable pain. By every indication it didn’t seem like God cared or was even taking notice. But He did and He was! Perhaps you know of someone suffering from continuous pain or an unending illness. God cares for them! Take them to the Lord in prayer…
NASV = New American Standard Version
OT = Old Testament
K&D = Commentary by Keil and Delitzsch (from PC Bible Study)
JFB = Commentary by Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown (from PC Bible Study)
Adam Clarke = Adam Clarke Commentary (from PC Bible Study)
Barnes = Barnes Notes (from PC Bible Study)
Hartley = The New International Commentary on the Old Testament:
The Book of Job by John E. Hartley
Swindoll = Job, Profiles in Character from Charles R. Swindoll
FIA = Tyndale OT Commentaries: Job by Francis I. Anderson
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