After Eliphaz’s first speech to Job, it’s now Job’s turn to respond to his assertions and accusations.
The Book of Job – Part V: Job’s first reply to Eliphaz
Then Job answered, “Oh that my vexation were actually weighed and laid in the balances together with my calamity! For then it would be heavier than the sand of the seas; therefore my words have been rash. For the arrows of the Almighty are within me, their poison my spirit drinks; the terrors of God are arrayed against me. Does the wild donkey bray over his grass, or does the ox low over his fodder?” –Job 6:1-5.
Job starts his reply by asking that the words he expressed back in chapter 3 would be weighed against the calamities that have befallen him. He uses the imagery of scales. He says that if weighed, you’d see that the calamities far outweigh whatever he had said. He then continues by thinking that it’s God who has brought this upon him. However, just as animals don’t complain without cause, neither does he. He’s trying to tell them: “I’m in pain!”
“Can something tasteless be eaten without salt, or is there any taste in the white of an egg? My soul refuses to touch them; they are like loathsome food to me.” –Job 6:6-7.
All of what has happened to Job has taken away his “taste” for life itself.
“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 6:8-9.
Job wants God to just kill him. He is under the incorrect assumption that it is God who has done all this to him and he just wants to die.
“But it is still my consolation, and I rejoice in unsparing pain, that I have not denied the words of the Holy One.” –Job 6:10.
What a powerful verse. Job’s one consolation in the midst of unbearable physical, emotional, and mental anguish, is that he has not denied God’s word. Oh that we, when faced with trials, can hold on to the same!
“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? For the despairing man there should be kindness from his friend; so that he does not forsake the fear of the Almighty.” –Job 6:11-14.
Job is at the end of his rope. He cannot bear the strain he’s under. He then indicts his friends by pointing out that they should have been kind to such a one as he who is suffering! He should have shown pity, sympathy and empathy but he did not.
“My brothers have acted deceitfully like a wadi, like the torrents of wadis which vanish.” –Job 6:15.
Job likens his friends to a wadi, which is similar to a mirage in the desert. Where they should provide water/comfort, they merely vanish away when they are most needed. How picturesque.
“Which are turbid because of ice and into which the snow melts. When they become waterless, they are silent, when it is hot, they vanish from their place.” –Job 6:16-17.
More imagery. Job calls his friends an iced over pool of water. You think you can walk on it but, deceitfully, if you do you’ll fall in!
“The paths of their course wind along, they go up into nothing and perish. The caravans of Tema looked, the travelers of Sheba hoped for them. They were disappointed for they had trusted, they came there and were confounded. Indeed, you have now become such, you see a terror and are afraid. Have I said, ‘Give me something,’ or, ‘Offer a bribe for me from your wealth,’ or, ‘Deliver me from the hand of the adversary,’ or, ‘Redeem me from the hand of the tyrants?’” –Job 6:18-23.
Job continues with his water imagery. He again likens his friends to being these mirages for caravans in the desert. The caravans look and hope to see water, but when they approach the pools, they were gone! Job accuses his friends by saying “you have now become just like them!” He then goes on to ask several rhetorical questions: did he ask his friends for anything of them? The answer, of course, is no.
“Teach me, and I will be silent; and show me how I have erred. How painful are honest words! But what does your argument prove? Do you intend to reprove my words, when the words of one in despair belong to the wind?” –Job 6:24-26.
His three friends don’t have any clue as to what is really going on. Job doesn’t either, really. None of them knew that Satan sent this calamity. Job’s friends misdiagnose the problem as hidden sin in Job’s life.
“You would even cast lots for the orphans and barter over your friend. Now please look at me, and see if I lie to your face. Desist now, let there be no injustice; even desist, my righteousness is yet in it. Is there injustice on my tongue? Cannot my palate discern calamities?” –Job 6:27-30.
Job tells his friends to come up with a better explanation for his troubles. He insists on his innocence so they need to come up with a better charge than his guiltiness.
“Is not man forced to labor on earth, and are not his days like the days of a hired man? As a slave who pants for the shade, and as a hired man who eagerly waits for his wages, so am I allotted months of vanity, and nights of trouble are appointed me.” –Job 7:1-3.
He feels like someone in the military forced to labor, or a hired man, or a slave. He has found no comfort in his friends and even his wife told him to commit suicide!
“When I lie down I say, ‘When shall I rise?’ but the night continues, and I am continually tossing until dawn. My flesh is clothed with worms and a crust of dirt, my skin hardens and runs. My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, and come to an end without hope.” –Job 7:4-6.
Job has nightmares and sleepless nights. He’s living a nightmare. He then describes some of his physical ailments. I cannot imagine what this man is going through. He describes his skin as covered in worms with hard, crusty sores that ooze. It’s pretty vile. And all his friends could do at this stage is point their finger and say he’s guilty of some sin in his life.
“Remember that my life is but breath; my eye will not again see good. The eye of him who sees me will behold me no more; your eyes will be on me, but I will not be. When a cloud vanishes, it is gone, so he who goes down to Sheol does not come up. He will not return again to his house, nor will his place know him anymore.” –Job 7:7-10.
He has reached a place of such despair that he doesn’t feel that his eye will behold goodness nor happiness again. He only looks forward to death now.
“Therefore I will not restrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit, I will complain in the bitterness of my soul. Am I the sea, or the sea monster, that You set a guard over me?” –Job 7:11-12.
Job here is asking God why he’s being treated so harshly, as if his very existence threatens the whole world.
“If I say, ‘My bed will comfort me, my couch will ease my complaint.’ Then You frighten me with dreams and terrify me by visions; so that my soul would choose suffocation, death rather than my pains. I waste away; I will not live forever. Leave me alone, for my days are but a breath.” –Job 7:13-16.
Including the sleepless nights he mentions in verse 4, here he says that God is causing him night terrors and visions that frighten him to death. Unfortunately, he doesn’t realize that those types of dreams are from our enemy, Satan, and not from God.
“What is man that You magnify him, and that You are concerned about him, that You examine him every morning and try him every moment? Will You never turn Your gaze away from me, nor let me alone until I swallow my spittle?” –Job 7:17-19.
Poor Job. We’re watching this drama unfold like watching a movie. The characters have no idea what is behind the curtain but we–the audience–do. We want to tell Job: “God loves you, Job! He didn’t do this to you, Job! God cares about you so much that even the very hairs on your head are numbered, Job!” (Matthew 10:30).
“Have I sinned? What have I done you You, O watcher of men? Why have You set me as Your target, so that I am a burden to myself? Why then do You not pardon my transgression and take away my iniquity? For now I will lie down in the dust; and You will seek me, but I will not be.” –Job 7:20-21.
Here, at the end of chapter 7, Job confesses he is a sinner but doesn’t understand why he has been singled-out for such a penalty. Job now just wants God to forgive his sin before he dies. Job is beginning to breakdown.
Next time, we’ll study the speech of Job’s next friend, Bildad, the traditionalist.
May He Increase!
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