Job6chapter 6

Job 6:1-3

Job answers Eliphaz with forensic language rather than lament alone, oh that my grief were throughly weighed, and my calamity laid in the balances together, asking for his suffering to be measured on a scale rather than dismissed by proverb. For now it would be heavier than the sand of the sea states his case in the vocabulary of weight and quantity that will recur through the chapter. Henry notes the request itself answers Eliphaz's confident maxims: a grief that outweighs the sea cannot be judged by a general rule about the foolish and the wicked. Barnes reads therefore my words are swallowed up as Job's own admission that speech fails to carry the full weight of what he suffers, not the wild exaggeration Eliphaz will take it for.

Job 6:4

Job names his affliction as God's own archery for the first time in the book, the arrows of the Almighty are within me, the poison whereof drinketh up my spirit, and the terrors of God do set themselves in array against me. Delitzsch reads the military image, an army set in battle order, as Job answering Eliphaz's talk of the wicked man's downfall by placing himself under a direct and personal siege from God rather than an impersonal law of consequence. Gill notes the poison of the arrows as figuring the inward anguish beneath the outward disease, a wound that reaches the spirit and not only the flesh.

Job 6:5-7

Job defends his complaint with two animal proverbs: the wild ass does not bray with grass before him nor the ox low over full fodder, meaning a creature protests only when it lacks what it needs, so his own crying out proves real want rather than mere temperament. Can that which is unsavoury be eaten without salt extends the figure to food that turns the stomach, and the things that my soul refused to touch are as my sorrowful meat names his suffering itself as food he cannot swallow. Clarke reads the proverbs as Job's answer to any charge that he complains without cause: even dumb animals know better than to cry out over nothing. Wesley notes the shift from animal to appetite as Job moving the argument from behavior to the body's own revulsion, a deeper claim than mere noise.

Job 6:8-10

Job's wish turns toward death, oh that I might have my request, and that God would grant me the thing that I long for, even that it would please God to destroy me, a request the friends will treat as scandalous though the book never rebukes it as sin. Then should I yet have comfort states the strange logic, that death itself would be a mercy set against ongoing agony. For I have not concealed the words of the Holy One is Job's own claim to integrity, that his wish to die comes from honest suffering and not from hidden rebellion. Barnes notes the request is never granted, which the reader may take as its own answer within the book's frame.

Job 6:11-13

Job asks what strength or hope remains to justify prolonging a ruined life, what is my strength, that I should hope, and what is mine end, that I should prolong my life. Is my strength the strength of stones, or is my flesh of brass denies the very endurance Eliphaz has been assuming he possesses. Gill reads is not my help in me answered by is wisdom driven quite from me as Job confessing that even his own inward resources have failed him, leaving nothing to draw on.

Job 6:14

Job states the book's own ethic of comfort in a single line, to him that is afflicted pity should be shewed from his friend, but he forsaketh the fear of the Almighty, naming withheld compassion itself as a kind of irreligion. Henry reads the verse as Job's direct charge against Eliphaz, that failing a friend in his affliction is not neutral but a departure from the fear of God the friends claim to be defending. Wesley notes the principle stands as true doctrine regardless of who states it, which is why the book can let the sufferer, not the theologian, deliver its clearest statement on comfort.

Job 6:15-17

Job turns the friendship itself into a figure, my brethren have dealt deceitfully as a brook, and as the stream of brooks they pass away, a wadi swollen and dark with ice and hidden snow in the season no one needs water. What time they wax warm, they vanish, when it is hot, they are consumed out of their place describes the brook failing exactly when the dry season makes it necessary. Delitzsch reads the picture as drawn from the wadis of the Arabian desert, torrents in winter and dust in summer, material any hearer in Job's world would recognize at once. Clarke notes the ice and snow of verse sixteen as the brief mountain melt that swells the wadi only to leave it emptier once the heat comes.

Job 6:18-20

The figure continues, the paths of their way are turned aside, they go to nothing, and perish, as travelers who trust a known route find it dissolved beneath them. The troops of Tema looked, the companies of Sheba waited for them names actual caravan routes through Arabia, merchants counting on water that fails at the moment of need. They were confounded because they had hoped, they came thither, and were ashamed completes the figure with the exact shame Job feels from friends who promised comfort and delivered accusation. Gill notes the geographic specificity, Tema and Sheba both real trading peoples, grounding the metaphor in the caravan trade Job's own wealth had once belonged to.

Job 6:21-23

Job applies the brook figure directly, for now ye are nothing, ye see my casting down, and are afraid, naming his friends' silence and horror at his condition as the dried-up stream made plain. Did I say, Bring unto me, or, Give a reward for me of your substance clears Job of any charge that his complaint was really a demand for money or rescue. Or, Deliver me from the enemy's hand, or, Redeem me from the hand of the mighty closes the denial: he asked nothing of them but the pity named in verse fourteen, and even that was withheld.

Job 6:24-27

Job invites correction on the only terms that could actually help him, teach me, and I will hold my tongue, and cause me to understand wherein I have erred, asking for a specific fault rather than a general doctrine. How forcible are right words, but what doth your arguing reprove grants that true words carry force while denying the friends have actually landed any charge that fits his case. Yea, ye overwhelm the fatherless, and ye dig a pit for your friend turns their comfort into active harm, treating Job as a case to be argued rather than a person to be helped. Wesley reads the fatherless as a figure for Job's own helplessness, a man without an advocate being argued against rather than defended.

Job 6:28-30

Job asks to be looked at rather than merely argued with, now therefore be content, look upon me, for it is evident unto you if I lie, appealing to his own visible integrity as evidence. Return, I pray you, let it not be iniquity, yea, return again, my righteousness is in it asks the friends to reconsider their whole approach rather than press further down the same road. Is there iniquity in my tongue, cannot my taste discern perverse things closes the chapter with Job's confidence in his own moral discernment, a claim the book's ending will not overturn. Henry notes the appeal to be looked upon plainly rather than argued against sets the pattern Job will repeat through the rest of his replies.