Reflections on Job 6

 Job 06 (Contemporary English Version)

1. Job said:
2. It's impossible to weigh my misery and grief!
3. They outweigh the sand along the beach, and that's why I have spoken without thinking first.
4. The fearsome arrows of God All-Powerful have filled my soul with their poison.
5. Do oxen and wild donkeys cry out in distress unless they are hungry?
6. What is food without salt? What is more tasteless than the white of an egg?
7. That's how my food tastes, and my appetite is gone.
8. How I wish that God would answer my prayer
9. and do away with me.
10. Then I would be comforted, knowing that in all of my pain I have never disobeyed God.
11. Why should I patiently hope when my strength is gone?
12. I am not strong as stone or bronze,
13. and I have finally reached the end of my rope.
14. My friends, I am desperate, and you should help me, even if I no longer respect God All-Powerful.
15. But you are treacherous
16. as streams that swell with melting snow,
17. then suddenly disappear in the summer heat.
18. I am like a caravan, lost in the desert while searching for water.
19. Caravans from Tema and Sheba
20. thought they would find water. But they were disappointed,
21. just as I am with you. Only one look at my suffering, and you run away scared.
22. Have I ever asked any of you to give me a gift
23. or to purchase my freedom from brutal enemies?
24. What have I done wrong? Show me, and I will keep quiet.
25. The truth is always painful, but your arguments prove nothing.
26. Here I am desperate, and you consider my words as worthless as wind.
27. Why, you would sell an orphan or your own neighbor!
28. Look me straight in the eye; I won't lie to you.
29. Stop accusing me falsely; my reputation is at stake.
30. I know right from wrong, and I am not telling lies.

---

Job now responded to his friend Eliphaz who accused him of sin as the reason for his suffering. Eliphaz did not point to any specific sin for which Job was guilty for he didn't know of any. But to him, the presence of Job's suffering was the evidence of sin.

Job began his response by crediting his rash words to the weight of his devastation. Suffering and rash words were linked just as bland food is linked to distaste for the food. Job did not ask to be restored to health and wealth but simply for God to cut him lose from life and let him die. He could die comforted in the knowledge that he had not "denied the words of the Holy One." (6:10) In his condition he had no strength to help himself so he felt all hope for success had been banished from him.

Job claimed innocence from wrong doing, but not so with his friends. A man should be able to expect loyalty from his friends even if he were to abandon God, but this was not the case with these friends by his side. They were as treacherous as a wadi whose supply of water vanishes when needed the most. Seeing Job in his condition, they were afraid, but of what? Had he asked anything of them?

Of what was Job guilty? Eliphaz had accused him of sin which he thought to be the cause of Job's suffering. But what was the sin? Job challenged him to point out the sin. He would remain silent while Eliphaz did so. Though it would be painful to hear, he would listen. But since Eliphaz had not shown his sin, his rebuke was meaningless. He treated Job's words as "mere wind," blowing past him without meaning.

Though Job denied any wrongdoing, Eliphaz ignored it. So he challenged Eliphaz to look him in the face and reconsider if he wasn't telling the truth. After all, his righteousness was the issue here. If he was guilty of sin, he was also lying. But if he wasn't lying, neither was he guilty of sin.