Job 6:1 - Meaning and Application

Eliphaz had spoken very sharply at the start, yet Job did not interrupt him. He listened patiently until Eliphaz finished. Anyone who wants to judge a speech fairly must hear the whole thing and take it as a whole. After that, Job answered, and he spoke with deep feeling.

First, Job says his suffering is much heavier than either he had described or his friends had understood (Job 6:2, Job 6:3). He could not fully explain it, and they did not truly grasp it, or would not admit that they did. So he wished for a fair judge, someone with just weights and balances, to measure his grief and trouble honestly. If his grief and its signs were put in one scale, and his suffering with all its parts in the other, they would see that his burden was heavier than the sand of the sea. It was full of many troubles, each one heavy on its own, and all of them together were countless.

When Job says, “my words are swallowed up,” he means that his speech is broken and bitter because his pain is so great. He asks them not to expect polished words from him, as if he were an eloquent speaker or a calm philosopher. In his condition, he cannot be either. He is overwhelmed, and his words show that.

He is also saying that his friends tried to “treat” his soul before they understood his case. That is often how it goes, people who are comfortable themselves do not measure the suffering of the hurting very well. Each person feels his own burden most deeply. Very few can truly feel another person’s.

Job also excuses the passionate words he had spoken when he cursed the day of his birth. He does not claim that everything he said was right, but he says they should not condemn him so harshly. His case was unusual, and some things may be overlooked in a man of sorrows like him that would never be allowed in ordinary grief. By describing his pain so fully, he hopes to move his friends toward more kindness. For those who are hurting, pity is a real relief.

Second, Job says that the deepest part of his suffering was the trouble and terror in his mind, not just his outward losses (Job 6:4). In this, he was a type of Christ, who also spoke most of the sorrow of his soul in his suffering. Jesus said, “Now my soul is troubled” (John 12:27), and, “My soul is deeply sorrowful” (Matthew 26:38). On the cross he cried, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46).

Job says, “The arrows of the Almighty are within me.” It was not only poverty, shame, or physical pain that crushed him. What pierced him most was the thought that the God he loved and served had brought all this on him, as if God were showing him displeasure. That is why trouble of mind is the hardest trouble. “A wounded spirit who can bear?” Whatever suffering God allows in our bodies or possessions, we can bear it more easily as long as our reason and conscience remain at peace. But if either of those is shaken, our condition is truly sad.

Job says these are the arrows of the Almighty because God can reach the soul in a way no human can. The One who made the soul can make his sword come near to it. He says their poison or heat drank up his spirit, because it disturbed his thinking, shook his resolve, drained his strength, and threatened his life. That is why his words, though not right, could be excused.

He also says he was afraid of the terrors of God, as if they were an army drawn up around him. God seemed to fight against him with fear itself. He had no comfort when he looked within, and no comfort when he looked up toward heaven. The God who had once encouraged him with his consolations now left him without them and filled him with dread.

Third, Job turns to his friends and reproves them for judging him so severely and handling his case so badly. Their criticism had no good reason. It is true that he was complaining now, but he had not been a complaining person in times of peace. He was not like animals that keep making noise when they have food. Now, however, he had been stripped of every comfort. He would be made like a stone if he felt nothing at all.

He says he was forced to eat tasteless food, poor food with no salt to season it, not even enough to give flavor to the white of an egg, which was now the best dish on his table (Job 6:6). Food that he once would have refused had become welcome to him, though it remained sorrowful food to eat (Job 6:7). It is wise not to make ourselves or our children too picky about food and drink, because we do not know what need may come, or how what we now reject may later become a gift.

Some understand Job to mean that his friends’ comfort was just as bland as the white of an egg, something tasteless and unhelpful (Job 6:6, Job 6:7). They had offered nothing that truly suited his need, no comfort that could refresh his spirit. What they gave was flat and lifeless to him, as unappealing as the most unpleasant food. It is sad that Job spoke this way about what Eliphaz had said so well in Job 5:8 and following. But troubled and irritable people are often too quick to reject the help of their comforters.