Job 6
McGeeCHAPTERS 6 AND 7THEME: Job’s answer to Eliphaz
Job 6:1
Job is making a plaintive plea. He says, “I can’t even tell you how terrible my grief is. I can’t explain to you this awful thing that has happened to me.” You can see that Eliphaz had not helped him at all. Just to say, “You have some secret sin and the thing for you to do now is to confess and get right with God,” is not always the correct thing to say. Job is saying, “You need to recognize what my question is.” Eliphaz had missed the point altogether. He said a lot of nice things, good things, true things, but he didn’t help Job. It is like giving the answer, “Christ is the answer,” when you don’t know what the question is. Job needs more than has been given him by Eliphaz. He is crying out like a wounded animal.
Job 6:3
Job says, “I am crying out and you can see my misery and you show no pity at all. You act as if I’m not in trouble. I wouldn’t be crying out if I weren’t.” He points out that the long-eared donkey out in the field doesn’t bray for something to eat when he is eating grass. So Job is saying that he wouldn’t be crying out if there were nothing hurting him. He says, “I’m hurting and I’m hurting bad.”
Job 6:6
“Sorrowful meat” is loathsome food.
Job 6:8
He has hit bottom. He finds no help anywhere. He actually questions the justice of God. He is miserable. He wishes God would destroy him, get rid of him, let loose His hand, and cut him off. He wants to die.
Job 6:10
He is saying, “I have nothing to live for.”
Job 6:12
“I am weary. I can’t stand any more.”
Job 6:13
Now listen to his cry.
Job 6:14
My friend should have shown pity, should have sympathized with me. But he didn’t.
Job 6:15
The meaning in the Hebrew is that they were like a mirage in the desert. This is beautiful, poetic language. It is as if he says that he looked down the road and saw his three friends coming and said to himself, Oh thank God, here come my friends. They will understand me and they will sympathize with me. Their sympathy would be like an oasis in the desert, but it was only a mirage.
Job 6:16
He says they are like a pool that is covered with ice and snow. It is deceitful. You think you can walk on it, but when you step on it, you fall through. That is the type of friends they have turned out to be. What a picture Job gives us! I’m not sure but what Job’s cry is the cry of the human predicament in our day. Man with all his comforts and his gadgetsoh, how lonesome, how restless, how unhappy he is! He is Enash, the miserable one. He needs more than gadgets; he needs God. Now Job will say, “If you have something to tell me, tell me. I’m teachable.”
Job 6:24
He says, “What you have said is good, but it doesn’t touch my case at all. You’re not diagnosing my condition.” I heard of a person who went to a doctor, and his case was diagnosed as arthritis. It turned out to be a cancer, but by the time the patient got into the hands of a cancer specialist, it was too late to do anything for him. That is the problem of Job. He says, “You have come and you have attempted to diagnose my case, but your diagnosis is wrong. You have said it is hidden sin, and it isn’t that at all. Now if you diagnose it accurately and you have something helpful to say to me, say it and I’ll listen to you.” Remember that these three friends didn’t really know God, they didn’t really know Job, and they didn’t really know themselves. They didn’t understand the true situation, and all three will come to the conclusion that Job had sinned and won’t confess the truth. Since he won’t confess his secret sin, he is being judged.