Job 6

Chap. VI. Ver. 1—30. Job’s reply to Eliphaz.—Job appears much hurt at the speech of Eliphaz, as deficient in sympathy and tenderness. He complains especially, that the bitter imprecations which he had uttered in a fit of despair little short of insanity, should be thus made the matter of so serious a charge. He begs that his calamities might be duly weighed, as an apology for the intemperance of his language. As to his three friends, abounding with the blessings of life, they might well argue of his afflictions, to which they were wholly strangers, while his body was tortured with pain, and his mind was agitated with a variety of distressing feelings. “Doth the wild ass, (says he,) bray when at grass? or loweth the ox over his fodder?” intimating that they might well be at ease when surrounded with every comfort, while to him every thing was as unsavoury as the white of an egg. “The things my soul refuseth to touch, (says he,) Are as sickly food.” Persons accustomed to much affliction will explain this better than the Lexicons. All their food is tasteless and unisavoury; the very sight of it turns them sick. In the sequel of his discourse, Job, says Scott, (the poet,) apologizes, laments, despises, wishes vehemently for death, protests his innocence, despairs, upbraids, and soothes. He apologizes again, and laments again. Then, turning to God, he argues with him, complains loudly of him, expostulates with him, and makes peace to him.”

Nothing but decided derangement could wholly excuse such language; and no being but him who formed his mind, and suffered it to be thus exercised, could possibly draw the line between his guilt and the necessary effects of his misfortunes or “weigh them together in the balances of the sanctuary.” It is by him only who can penetrate motives, that actions can be duly weighed. ((1 Samuel 2:3).) Job, however, retaliates on his friends with no less severity than they had shown to him. He compares them to the mountain torrents, from various quarters, uniting into a flood; but no sooner does the summer heat come on than they evaporate. They fail to comfort him; but, instead of pouring consolation into his distressed heart, their friendship had all evaporated in controversy, and he derived from them no consolation.

He reproaches them also with deserting him; charges them with attempting to ensnare him, and, with criticising language, which proceeded from the extremity of his despair, and not from reason or his heart. He denies any former obligations to their assistance, and begs only a patient hearing in his own defence, that he may establish his integrity.

Notes on the verses

Chap. VI. Ver. 3. My words are swallowed up.—The critics have been puzzled to explain this, but those who have witnessed persons speaking in a violent passion, may perhaps have seen the best illustration of the image, in the labour when they speak: their words appear, as if they had been swallowed, and rising in their throat, to choke them; indeed some persons have been choked with passion. This is perhaps more just than the sense suggested in the margin, for persons in a passion seldom want words, though they may want utterance. See (Psalms 77:4).

Ver. 4. Arrows of the Almighty.—The following passage from the Toorky Teemoor affords a fine illustration of this passage: “It was once demanded of the fourth khaliph, (Ali,) If the canopy of heaven were a bow, and the earth the cord thereof; if calamities were the arrows; if mankind were the mark for these arrows; and if the Almighty God, the tremendous and glorious, were the unerring Archer;—to whom would the sons of Adam flee for protection? The khaliph answered, The sons of men must flee unto the Lord!”—Bagster.—The poison whereof.—It is well known that in most barbarous nations—the early Greeks, as well as the Moors and Indians—poisoned arrows were commonly used in war: and to these is the allusion.

Ver. 6. Be eaten without salt.—Salt is one of the necessaries of life; (see note on (Ezra 4:14).) and this is especially the case with paps who live on vegetables. Park (the traveller) says, “the long use of vegetable food creates so painful a longing for salt, that no words can sufficiently describe it.”

Ver. 8. The thing that I longed for—i. e. hasten my “expected end.”

Ver. 9. Let loose his hand.—Meaning, stretch it out, and strike the fatal blow at once.

Ver. 10. Yet have comfort.—That is, in death; see Chap. iii, 17, &c. I would harden myself.—That is, fortify my mind to bear the worst. But Good and others render it, “exult; leap up.” So Scott (the poet:)—

Exulting hope shall spend my latest breath.’

I have not concealed.—Or rather, “resisted,” or “would not resist.” The word, or command of the Holy One Pio is, the Most Holy. So Good, on the authority of Schultens and St.

Ver. 11. What mine end.—The sense seems to be, What better end could I hope, even if my life should be prolonged?

Ver. 12. Strength of stones.—[So Cicero, “For man is not chiseled out of the rock, nor hewn out of the oak: he has a body, and he has a soul; the one actuated by intellect, the other by the senses.”]—Bagster.

Most modern critics

Ver. 13. Is not my help in me?—This is very obscure. Here drop the interrogative: “Verily, there is no help for me in myself, And wisdom (reason) is driven from me.” See Good, Scott, &c.

Ver. 14. To him that is afflicted (Heb. ‘melteth;” i. e. with grief)—(be) pity from his friend; but he forsaketh:—This is difficult to construe, but it is generally applied to the false friend who has no pity. Gesenius, however, gives to the vau (which means almost any thing) in this place the sense of otherwise; “otherwise he (the friend) forsaketh,” &c. But may it not be understood of the distressed man himself, thus?, “*Lest he forsake (or, otherwise he may forsake) the fear of the Lord,” intimating, that the want of kindness from his friends (as in the following verses) had driven him to despair and impiety “as a torrent.” So Lowth; this being the

Ver. 15. As a brook.—Rather, term applied to these temporary streams from the mountain.

A stream of brooks—Rather, “a flood of torrents;” i. e. several torrents, uniting into a flood.

Ver. 16. Which are blackish (i. e. turbid) by reason of the ice.—The waters are rendered turbid, by the dissolving of the ice on the tops of the mountains.

Ver. 17. Vanish.—As soon as they flow they are dried up,” says Lowth. Take off so rapidly, that the inhabitants can scarcely fill their culinary

Ver. 18. Turned aside.—The course of these streams is often changed.—They go to nothing.—Heb.

“ascend to nothing;” i. e. the water is lost in evaporation, on the power of which, see note on (Genesis 8:8). to which we may add, that the evaporation from water is reckoned at six times that from land.

Ver. 19. The troops of Tema, &c.—The caravans which travel with merchandise to Egypt, flattered with the sight of water at a distance, were disappointed when they arrived, and found it gone.

Ver. 21. Now ye are nothing—i. e. your professed friendship is come to nothing, like the

words.—Rather, “words of uprightness.”—But what doth

Ver. 25. Right your arguing—Literally, “What doth your reproving reprove?” Dr. Good. from you?” Dr. Stock. Or, “What reproof is there in a reproving?”

Ver. 26. Do ye imagine (mean) to reprove words? ‘Do you mean to reprove (or criticise) words? The words of one in despair, which are like the whistling of the wind?’ So De Dieu, Dathe, Rosenmuller, &c. “Do you mean to reprove words which are like wind— The words of one who is in despair?” We commonly say, that words of persons in certain circumstances, are no more to be regarded than the whistling of the wind; and this is the idea above.

Ver. 27. The Satherless.—Literally, “the (says Good) it denotes destitute, isolated, be a pitfall,” as was done to entrap wild beasts.

Ver. 28. Be content.—“Be pleased with your presence.” So we should render it.

Ver. 29. Return again, &c.—“Return until I show it;” i.e. as the margin explains it, ‘in this matter.’