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The lament continues (6:2-12) as if Job has not heard Eliphaz. His tone is more thoughtful now: “Oh that my grief were throughly weighed” (6:2). ‘I choke on my cries’ (6:3). Job lays bare his sorrow (6:2-4). “The things that my soul refused to touch are as my sorrowful meat” (6:7).
Job is sensitive to Eliphaz criticism and defends his right to lament. “Doth the wild ass bray when he hath grass?” (6:5). The wild ass or donkey appears often in the book of Job as an allegory for man. “The wild ass is a striking image of that which is untamed and unsubdued” (Barnes, note on 11:12): “For they are gone up to Assyria, a wild ass alone by himself: Ephraim hath hired lovers” (Hosea 8:9). As in this quote from Hosea, the comparison generally implies a level of rebelliousness. “A wild ass used to the wilderness, that snuffeth up the wind at her pleasure; in her occasion who can turn her away?” (Jer. 2:24).
So why does Job compare himself to the wild ass? This will be cruelly turned against him by Zophar (11:12). Two answers come to mind. First, he has been thrust out and made solitary by the circumstances placed upon him and by the shunning of all who knew him. This is a sardonic admission of his reality. Job will,later, refer to the poor and needy who are thrust out by society as “wild asses” (24:5). But more than that, his friend has taken a tone righteous indignation reviling him, and Job knows he is now being forced into rebellion against the creed and dogma by which Eliphaz justifies his condemnations. Job knows that he is now in rebellion, not against God, but against the religious edifice to which he swore allegiance only a week before.
Job's reply works on two levels. ‘I'm in pain here’, is Job's implication, ‘of course I'm going to complain.’ Underneath is the challenge that something is terribly out of order and it must be protested. “Can that which is unsavory be eaten without salt” (6:6)? As bread requires butter to be eaten, so does my grief require I lament, before I swallow it down (Barnes, note on 6:6).
“I have not concealed the words of the Holy One” (6:10). An enticing turn of phrase, Job is saying that he has been an example of the word of God, or God's instructions (NET Bible, footnote to 6:10). ‘Holy One’ could indicate an anointed teacher, an angel or any sacred person. Job's relationship to God up to this point is not personal (42:5) so it is unlikely that he is indicating any special visitation. It is rather a statement of faithfulness in all things righteous, as in “I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God” (Acts 20:27). Job is understandably agitated, and the comments of Eliphaz are not helping. He continues, “Even that it would please God to destroy me” (6:9), ‘Don't torture me, just finish me off’ (6:8-10), ‘I don't have the strength of brass or of stones’ (6:12).
“Is not my help in me? and is wisdom driven quite from me?” (6:13). Job stops and wonders if his own resources have gone; if he has become foolish. What we are seeing is Job wrestling with his inner emotions. He is pulling himself together. This is important, for this is where Job is off kilter, so I will continually point this out, Job is pulling his own self together on his own steam. He is using ‘my help’ and ‘my wisdom’. To characterize himself as a wild ass or donkey is not far off the mark. He is cut off and without support. He is in a predicament where his own efforts and his own understanding do him no good what-so-ever. “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths” (Prov. 3:5-6).
This is my difficulty with psychology in general. It is intended to reinforce the self. Where else is a secular scientist going to go. There are some Christian psychologists which do not fall into this trap, but most are secular psychologies papered over with Christian terminology. They are Christian in name only. Few believe in or engage in deliverance from demons, which Jesus practiced and taught his disciples, a ministry common in the early church. In the first century, the disciples combated mystery religions which took on the veneer of Christianity calling themselves gnostics. Much modern psychology is a secular, if not atheistic, self-centered philosophy which sees the individual as body and soul. Those psychologies which do speak of the spirit are usually influenced by the Kabalistic and gnostic philosophies of Carl Jung. Psychiatrists bring relief through drugs, but not healing. Christians need great caution when drinking from these wells.
In essence, Job is drinking from that well. It will give him strength, but will not deliver him from his torment. His sanity is intact, wrapped as it is in personal dignity. I do not believe he is sinning, so Eliphaz is off the mark with his innuendos. Job is not guilty of any of the imagined infractions. Instead his independence is trapping him. He is wild and free–starving, cold and naked. He has lost everything. He is wracked with pain. He clutches his personal dignity, which his friends see as tragically comical. God has an entirely different approach to Job's healing. The book of Job outlines an entirely different way to psychological health.
Job is stopped and questions himself. He immediately raises the iron bars of self-assurance. Having regained his composure, Job has a powerful personal fortitude quite apart from his righteousness. Once recovered, Job delivers a stinging rebuke to Eliphaz and his friends (6:14-23).
Job demonstrates that he is formidably aware of everything Eliphaz has said. Job has already been wrestling with the same questions.
Job begins by challenging Eliphaz that he must not fear God, that he shows no pity (6:14). This is a serious charge. Righteousness begins with the fear of the Lord. Without that, a man is left to choose his own righteousness. The evidence against Job is circumstantial, he is afflicted. Who sinned? Job or his parents? “Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him” (John 9:3).
There are several variant readings of verse 14 owing to translation difficulties and a variation between old Syriac texts, which the Vulgate follows, and the standard Hebrew text (Smith 1971, 46-48). The ancient Syriac as used by the Revised Standard Version reads: “He who withholds kindness from a friend forsakes the fear of the Almighty” (6:14). The New American Standard Bible uses a different interpretation: “For the despairing man there should be kindness from his friend; So that he does not forsake the fear of the Almighty.” The major question is who looses their fear of God, the one who fails to show kindness or the one to whom kindness is not shown. Either way the intent is to get the three friends to show some consideration. The Anchor Bible follows the approuch favored by several translators including the King James Version: “A sick man should have the loyalty of his friend, Even if he renounce fear of Shaddai.” The dialog that follows appears to favor the first more confrontational interpretation: those who have no pity do not fear God.
Job compares his friends to a stream that is dried up (6:15-20). This was a rich image for men of arid lands. “An illustration of the verse before us occurs in Campbell’s Travels in Africa. ‘In desert parts of Africa it has afforded much joy to fall in with a brook of water, especially when running in the direction of the journey, expecting it would prove a valuable companion. Perhaps before it accompanied us two miles it became invisible by sinking into the sand; but two miles farther along it would reappear and raise hopes of its continuance; but after running a few hundred yards, would sink finally into the sand, no more again to rise.’ A comparison of a man who deceives and disappoints one to such a Stream is common in Arabia, and has given rise, according to Schultens, to many proverbs. Thus, they say of a treacherous friend, ‘I put no trust in thy torrent;’ and, ‘O torrent, thy flowing subsides.’ So the Scholiast on Moallakat says, ‘a pool or flood was called Gadyr, because travelers when they pass by it find it full of water, but when they return they find nothing there, and it seems to have treacherously betrayed them. So they say of a false man, that he is more deceitful than the appearance of water’–referring, perhaps, to the deceitful appearance of the mirage in the sands of the desert” (Barnes, note on 6:15).
Seeing my misfortune, you are afraid, Job continues (6:21). Here Job has uncovered something. His three friends are justifiably afraid. If this calamity can come upon the greatest among them, what protects them? They have lost sympathy for Job in their zeal to uncover a cause. They sum up with eloquent descriptions of returning fortunes, if Job but rectify his fault. The sight of Job terrifies them. Out of fear they furiously dig for Job's fault. And out of fear they suggest, everything will be put right. Like Job, their fear, is a fear of God's retribution.
Job is not going to let them off the hook until he gets off the hook. ‘Did I ask for anything from you’ (6:22-23)? Job is now on the offensive. They have attacked him in order to find reason where none is to be had. Since the three men looked up to Job, his calamity terrifies them; their trust appears to have been misplaced. they have wrongly assumed that it is Job's fault, when actually Job is on the right track and God is pleased to bruise him (Isa. 53:10) for his own good. Job's redemption will be theirs as well (42:9 & 10).
Job has been looking for his fault, but can't find one. So he demands his accusers, ‘please show me my sin’ (6:24). “Right words”, reproof based on wise discernment, carry weight (6:26), but Eliphaz is flailing without wisdom, knowledge or understanding (6:25-27). Job concludes that they should be quiet and pay attention to see if there be any sin for which Job deserves this punishment (6:28-30). How often are we unable to wait on the Lord for wisdom? It is too easy to rush to judgement based on presumed knowledge. Job scolds his friends for impatience, but we will see that he will be rebuked for this himself, first by Elihu (35:14-15) and finally impatience is implied by God's rebuke (38:2).
How many, wracked by circumstances of outrageous fortune, stand with Job in a “slippery place” (Ps. 73:18). It is difficult to meekly accept the injury, or to cry out for wisdom and discernment without judgement or defense when you are whirling with weariness, confusion and accusation. “Theological combatants usually enjoy little religion. In stormy debate and heated discussion there is usually little communion with God and little enjoyment of true piety–In a heated argument a man becomes insensibly more concerned for the success of his cause than for the honor of God, and will often advance sentiments even severely reflecting on the divine government, rather than confess the weakness of his own cause, and yield the point in debate” (Barnes, Concluding Remarks to the Book of Job, section 3). The debate between Job and his friends is becoming white hot.
Job is fierce in his defense and in his rebuke of the three friends. Job says, and I paraphrase, ‘my cry is desperate, but, (if God ignores it) it goes out to the wind’ (6:26). ‘To condemn my cry’, Job suggests, ‘is to dig a pit for a friend’ (6:27). Job concludes with a plea to slow down and look again, “And now please look at me, And see if I lie to your face. Desist now, let there be no injustice; Even desist, my righteousness is yet in it. Is there injustice on my tongue? Cannot my palate discern calamities?” (6:28-30, NASB). Job is sure that his friends, who know him well, will see that he isn't lying. He is asking for patience and forbearance. Do I speak evil? Job questions in a desperate appeal to their conscience. “Cannot my taste discern perverse things?” (6:30). He finishes with this rich image, at once defiant and humbling with explosive reproof. ‘I can still taste evil when it crosses my tongue.’
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