6:1–13 In Job 4–5, Eliphaz counseled Job to recognize his guilt before God and to go to him for forgiveness and restoration. In 6:1–3 Job tells (“answered”; v. 1) Eliphaz, and the other friends as well (the “you” throughout ch. 6 is plural; vv. 21, 25–27), that he has every reason to be upset and frustrated by the situation. If someone took all of Job’s anger (“vexation”) and agony (“calamity”; v. 2) and weighed it on a scale, it would be “heavier than the sand of the sea” (v. 3a). That is why his words have come across as “rash” (v. 3b). Job cannot keep silent any more than a beast (“the wild donkey . . . or the ox”) keeps silent when it is hungry (the donkey brays “when he has grass”; the ox lows “over his fodder”; v. 5).

Job’s friends fail to understand the situation properly. He will not stomach their insipid (“tasteless,” v. 6; untouchable, see v. 7a; “loathsome,” v. 7b) words, for he is not under the discipline of God due to some sin (“I have not denied the words of the Holy One”; v. 10). Instead, God has attacked him without cause (“the arrows of the Almighty are in me”; v. 4; cf. Lam. 3:12–13).56 Job has already expressed his only hope—death (Job 3). He wants the arrows of God to finish him off: “Oh that I might have my request, and that God would fulfill my hope” (6:8), namely, to “crush me . . . cut me off!” (v. 9). He sees his destruction as his only possibility of future “comfort” (v. 10). He has reached his limit, perhaps the human limit, of patience (“What is my strength, that I should wait?”; v. 11). His body can only take so much (“Is my strength the strength of stones, or is my flesh bronze?”; v. 12). His self-resolve has vanished (“Have I any help in me?”; v. 13).57

6:14–30 As Job thinks God has attacked him (6:4), so he next expresses the arrows of his friends’ attack (presumably expressed in Eliphaz’s estimation and advice; chs. 4–5). Instead of showing him steadfast love (“kindness”; Hb. hesed), they have proved disloyal to him. His proverb about them is as sharp as any arrow: “He who withholds kindness from a friend forsakes the fear of the Almighty” (6:14). Next, Job compares his friends (whom he ironically calls “my brothers”; v. 15) to wadis (vv. 15–20). Like temporary “torrential streams” (v. 15a) that form in the Arabian Desert (“the waste”; v. 18b) after heavy rainfall but quickly dry up (“pass away,” v. 15b; “vanish,” v. 17b) before providing sustenance for desperate and weary travelers (those who have turned “aside from their course,” v. 18; “caravans of Tema . . . travelers of Sheba,” v. 19), their “wisdom” has proved an unreliable source in sustaining him through his suffering. Just as these travelers, who were “confident” there would be water in the wadi when they arrived there, are “ashamed” and “disappointed” (v. 20) once they see the streambed is dry, so Job wants his friends to know that their counsel comes from overconfident and misguided perceptions of his situation.

Next, Job takes the arrow from his friends out of his soul and sticks it in theirs. His friends are like that empty riverbed: “you now have become nothing” (v. 21a). As they look at Job (“you see my calamity”; v. 21b), they are as “afraid” as those wanderers at the waterless wadi. They shrink back in fear instead of moving toward him in friendship. Job has not asked for much; he has not asked them for money (“Have I said, ‘Make me a gift’?”; v. 22a) or to take steps to rescue him (“[Have I said,] ‘Deliver me. . . . Redeem me. . . .’?”; v. 23). Instead he seeks wisdom. “Teach me, and I will be silent; make me understand how I have gone astray” (v. 24). He needs “upright words” (v. 25a).

But their wisdom and words have thus far proved futile: “But what does reproof from you reprove?” (v. 25b). In other words, their criticisms amount to nothing! They think they have Job’s problem solved (v. 26) and treat his disagreement with their diagnosis with disdain. To them, Job is full of hot air (“the speech of a despairing man is wind”; v. 26b). Their charges are baseless and their accusations heartless. Job is a person, not an object. His friends are treating him like a commodity, not a companion (“you . . . bargain over your friend”), acting as cruel and careless as poker sharks gambling over a desolate child’s life (“you would even cast lots over the fatherless”; v. 27).

But there is time for Job’s friends to change. Verses 28–30 are his call to repentance: “Please turn. . . . Turn now” (v. 29). In essence, Job concludes, “You look me in the eye [“be pleased to look at me”; v. 28a], and I will look you in the eye. Let us treat each other like human beings. Friends. I promise I will not exaggerate the pain, hide any sins, or ‘lie to your face’ [v. 28b; cf. v. 30]. You promise to be fair-minded [“let no injustice be done”; v. 29a]. ‘My vindication is at stake’ [v. 29b]. Please believe me. You must believe me when I say that my words [“Is there any injustice on my tongue?”; v. 30a] are not the ‘cause of’ my ‘calamity’ [v. 30b].”

7:1–10 In chapter 7, Job shifts from confronting his friends (“Please turn. . . . Turn now”; 6:29) to complaining (“I will complain in the bitterness of my soul”; 7:11) to his God. His complaint is, we might say, east of Eden. The crunch of the thorns and thistles from Genesis 3:17–19 can be felt beneath Job’s feet. “Man” has a “hard service on earth” (Job 7:1a). His workdays are long (“his days [are] like the days of a hired hand”; v. 1b) and his toil under the sun without respite (“like a slave who longs for the shadow”; v. 2a). And although man works like a forced laborer (cf. vv. 1–2 with 1 Kings 5:13–14) for meager pay, the weekend never seems to come around (he “looks for his wages”; Job 7:2b).

Life is hard for all humans—such is how Job begins chapter 7. Next, he turns to himself. Notice the change from “man” to “me,” “my,” and “I,” used thirteen times in verses 3–10. Job will return to man in verse 17 (“What is man . . . ?”) but will continually view the plight of man in light of his only. In chapter 7, “I” is used twenty times, “my” seventeen times, and “me” thirteen times. In verse 3, Job applies the analogy he used of man in verse 2 to himself: worse than the man who works all week and gets measly wages in return, Job suffers (“nights of misery are apportioned to me”; v. 3b) for nothing (“I am allotted months of emptiness”; v. 3a).58 He inherits futility, along with insomnia. “The night is long” (“When I lie down I say, ‘When shall I arise?’”); he tosses in his sleep (“I am full of tossing till the dawn”; v. 4).

His days are worse! They come and go, one sunrise after the next, quickly ending without a thread of hope (“my days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle and come to their end without hope”; v. 6). Day after day, nothing has changed: he has not been healed; he has not died. But his body is like a walking corpse (“my flesh is clothed with worms and dirt”) that regenerates sores (“my skin hardens, then breaks out afresh”; v. 5).

Job’s reflection on his days and nights (vv. 3b–6) and weeks and months (vv. 1–3a) leaves him realistic (“my life is a breath”)59 but not optimistic (“my eye will never again see good”; v. 7). The reason he is not optimistic is related to God’s omnipresence, a theme he will return to later (v. 20), and to mankind’s transiency. As God looks on him (“your eyes are on me”; v. 8b), and perhaps mankind does as well (“the eye of him who sees me”; v. 8a),60 nothing is done to rescue Job and his fellow man. Just as he will die (“I shall be gone,” v. 8b; “no more,” v. 8a), man (“he”; vv. 9, 10), who has worked so hard (vv. 1–2), works for nothing. The grave (“Sheol” in Hebrew, the place of the dead) will swallow up any remembrance of him:

    As the cloud fades and vanishes,

    so he who goes down to Sheol does not come up;

    he returns no more to his house,

    nor does his place know him anymore. (vv. 9–10)

7:11–16 Job has had enough. What has become of his body and what becomes of every human body is one thing. It is quite another thing to consider what has become of his soul. He can close his mouth no longer (“I will not restrain my mouth; I will speak”; v. 11ab) about the “anguish of” his “spirit” and the “bitterness of” his “soul” (v. 11bc). He does not grasp what God is doing. He is not the Mediterranean Sea or the Leviathan, that God must pay special attention to him, making sure that evil on earth is held at bay (“Am I the sea, or a sea monster, that you set a guard over me?”; v. 12).61 “Leave me alone” (v. 16b), Job cries out. Even at night, when rest should be routine, God sends nightmares, Job claims:

    When I say, “My bed will comfort me,

    my couch will ease my complaint,”

    then you scare me with dreams

    and terrify me with visions. (vv. 13–14)

Why will God not remove the arrows of anguish? Job knows he will “not live forever” (his “days are a breath,” v. 16a; Hb. hebel). Death by strangulation is a far better option (“I would choose strangling and death”) than what he is now enduring (“death rather than my bones”; v. 15).

7:17–21 Job is not done with his imprecatory poem. He next aims his arrows at the Almighty. However, he dulls their edges. He does not make accusations; rather, he asks eight questions. The first is:

    What is man, that you make so much of him,

    and that you set your heart on him,

    visit him every morning

    and test him every moment? (vv. 17–18)

Unlike Psalm 8, which asks, “what is man that you are mindful of him, . . . that you care for him?” (v. 4) and begins and ends in praise, “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” (vv. 1, 9), in Job 7:17–18 God’s mindfulness of man begins and ends only in despair.62 To Job, God’s omnipresence is overbearing (Job cannot even swallow his spit; cf. v. 19). God’s watchful eye (“you watcher of mankind”; v. 20a) is not that of a protective father or merciful deliverer (as it was for Israel; see Pss. 12:7; 25:20; 40:11; 61:7) or even of a tester of mankind (cf. Ps. 11:4; Eccles. 3:18). Rather, the Almighty’s eye equals his arrows (“Why have you made me your mark?”; Job 7:20; cf. 6:4). Job wants to be ignored, not oppressed by God’s omnipresence. And, if he cannot be ignored, he simply wants to be forgiven for whatever microscopic sin is causing his colossal catastrophe: “Why do you not pardon my transgression and take away my iniquity” before I die (“I shall lie in the earth”) and our relationship is over (“you will seek me, but I shall not be”; v. 21)?”

Job’s final question (v. 21) is as important and as exaggerated as the first (vv. 17–18). He is looking for some sin as eagerly as his friends are. He is hoping to find something, even the smallest sin that he could confess to release God’s harsh hand. However, he cannot find anything, and the specific sins his friends name do not resonate with his own honest self-evaluation and perception. So he calls on God to rescue him by both naming the sin and forgiving it.