Job 6

This chapter belongs to the dialogue section of the Book of Job and contains Job's first reply to one of his friends. In the preceding chapters, Job 4 and Job 5, Eliphaz urged Job to accept God's chastening. Job responds to him in this chapter and in Job 7.

Outline

• Verses 1–7 Job says that if his grief and calamity were weighed in the balances, they would be heavier than the sand of the sea; that is why his words have been rash. He laments that the arrows of the Almighty are lodged within him, and with the image of a wild ass that does not bray when it has grass, he argues that his crying out is not without cause.
• Verses 8–13 He asks that God would simply cut him off. Even so, he takes comfort in the knowledge that he has not turned against the words of the Holy One. Yet he has no strength left to go on waiting, and he says that his flesh is not made of stone or brass.
• Verses 14–21 He says that one who is in despair ought to receive the compassion of his friend, but his friends are like brooks that dry up in summer. Just as the caravans (traveling companies of merchants) of Tema and Sheba come looking for water and are disappointed, so he has been disappointed in his friends.
• Verses 22–30 Job says he never asked his friends for wealth or deliverance. He promises to be silent if they will show him his error, and he rebukes them for not dealing fairly with his words. Finally, he asks them to look at him, for he will not lie, and he maintains that his cause is righteous.

Key Verses

• Job 6:10 "For I have not concealed the words of the Holy One": This verse reveals Job's conviction that, even in extreme suffering, he has not denied God.
• Job 6:14 "To him that is afflicted pity should be shewed from his friend": This verse raises the question of what a friend owes to someone who is suffering.
• Job 6:24 "Teach me, and I will hold my tongue: and cause me to understand wherein I have erred": Job asks not for vague condemnation but to be shown his specific wrongdoing.

Persons and Places

• Job: The speaker in this chapter.
• Eliphaz: The friend who spoke in the previous chapters and one of Job's three friends. In this chapter Job addresses all his friends collectively as "you."
• Tema: Known as an oasis region in northern Arabia. It should not be confused with Demas, the New Testament figure, whose name is spelled the same way in Korean.
• Sheba: Known as a trading people or region in southern Arabia.

Points for Reflection

• The meaning of the Hebrew rendered "the white of an egg" in verse 6 is uncertain, and some translations render it instead as the juice of a certain plant. Verse 14 is also difficult in the original, and its wording differs among translations such as the Korean Revised Version and the New Korean Revised Version.
• In verse 3 Job himself admits that his words have been rash, yet God later declares that Job spoke rightly, unlike his friends (Job 42:7). Interpreters therefore differ in how much weight they give to reading the laments of this chapter as honest prayer or as exaggeration that is later corrected.
• In the New Testament, James 5:11 speaks of "the patience of Job." How to read that description alongside the raw complaints of this chapter is also a frequently discussed question.