Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 6:13

[Is] not my help in me? and is wisdom driven quite from me?

13. This verse reads something as follows,

Is not my help within me gone,

And recovery driven away from me?

Both clauses seem to refer to the exhaustion caused by his disease. He feels that all resource within himself and all possibility of recovery is gone. The word “recovery” is that used in ch. Job 5:12, “anything effectual” (see notes), and probably signifies substance, or powers of recovery. The word might also be applied, as in ch. Job 11:6, to a condition of the mind and signify mental resource, but this sense does not seem to suit the connexion.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Is not my help in me? – This would be better rendered in an affirmative manner, or as an exclamation. The interrogative form of the previous verses need not be continued in this. The sense is, alas! there is no help in me! That is, I have no strength; I must give up under these sorrows in despair. So it is rendered by Jerome, Rosenmuller, Good, Noyes, and others.

And is wisdom quite driven from me? – This, also, should be read as an affirmation, deliverance is driven from me. The word rendered wisdom ( tushyah) means properly a setting upright; then help, deliverance; and then purpose, enterprise; see the notes at Job 5:12. Here it means that all hope of deliverance had fled, and that he was sinking in despair.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Verse 13. Is not my help in me?] My help is all in myself; and, alas! that is perfect weakness: and my subsistence, tushiyah, all that is real, stable, and permanent, is driven quite from me. My friends have forsaken me, and I am abandoned to myself; my property is all taken away, and I have no resources left. I believe Job neither said, nor intended to say, as some interpreters have it, Reason is utterly driven from me. Surely there is no mark in this chapter of his being deranged, or at all impaired in his intellect.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

Though I have no strength in my body, or outward man, yet I have some help and support within me, or in my inward man, even the conscience of my own innocency and piety, notwithstanding all your bitter accusations and censures, as if I had no integrity, Job 4:6.

Is wisdom driven quite from me? If I have no strength in my body, have I therefore no wisdom or judgment left in my soul? Am I therefore unable to judge of the vanity of thy discourse, and of the truth of my own case? Have I not common sense and discretion? Do not I know my own condition, and the nature and degree of my sufferings, better than thou dost? Am not I a better judge whether I have integrity or no than thou art? But this verse is rendered otherwise, and that very agreeably to the Hebrew words, What if I have no help in me, (i.e. if I cannot help myself, if my outward condition be helpless and hopeless, as I confess it is,)

is wisdom driven quite from me? Have I therefore lost my understanding and common reason? Cannot I judge whether it is more desirable for me to live or to die, whether I am a hypocrite or no, whether your words have truth and weight in them or no, whether you take the right method in dealing with me, whether you deal mercifully and sincerely with me, or no? Yet again, (because the construction and sense of these words is judged very difficult,) this verse may be joined with the following, and rendered thus, What if there be no help in me, (or, if I be not able to bear my miseries,) and if counsel be driven from me, so that I know not what to do, or how to help or ease myself? or, and subsistence, or power of subsisting, be driven or taken away from me, so that I can neither help myself out of my troubles, nor subsist under them? yet to the afflicted pity should be showed, &c.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

13. Is not my help in me?Theinterrogation is better omitted. “There is no help in me!”For “wisdom,” “deliverance” is a betterrendering. “And deliverance is driven quite from me.”

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

[Is] my help in me?…. Or “my defence” y, as some; is it not in my power to defend myself against the calumnies and reproaches cast upon me? it is; and, though one have no help in myself to bear my burdens, or extricate myself out of my difficulties, yet I have the testimony of a good conscience within me, that supports me; and I have the strength and force of reason and argument on my side, to defend me against all objectors:

and is wisdom driven from me? either sound doctrine, the law z, or, rather, the Gospel, the wisdom of God in a mystery, revealed in the words of the Holy One before mentioned; or wisdom in the hidden part, the fear of God, which is wisdom, true grace in the heart, which, when once implanted, can never be driven out; or natural reason and understanding, of which he was not bereaved; for, though his body was thus sorely afflicted, he retained his reasoning and intellectual faculties. The words, in connection with the former, may be read, “what, if help is not with me, is wisdom also driven quite from me?” a does it follow, because I am not able to help myself out of this afflicted and distressed condition in which I am, that I am deprived of my reason? or be it that I am such a weak impotent creature, and even distracted, as you take me to be, should I not then rather be pitied than insulted? so some b connect the words following.

y “defensio mea penes me”, Junius et Tremellius, Piscator. z “lex”, Mercerus; so Peritsol. a So Cocceius and Schultens. b So De Dieu.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

(13) Is not my help in me?It is in passages such as these that the actual meaning of Job is so obscure and his words so difficult. The sense may be, Is it not that I have no help in me, and wisdom is driven quite from me? or yet again, Is it because there is no help in me that therefore wisdom is driven far from me? as is the case by your reproaches and insinuations. (See especially Job. 5:2; Job. 5:27.)

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

13. Is not my help in me Rather, Is it not so that there is no help in me?

Wisdom Strength, or soundness toushiyyah; same as in Job 5:12. A comprehensive word embracing the entire internal resources of a man. We may call it the very substratum of man’s being, the substance, (Latin, substantia,) that which is beneath, upon which all that appears rests. With Job all is gone.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Job 6:13. Is not my help in me? &c. Or, because my help is not at hand, is wisdom therefore departed far from me? Houbigant. Heath renders it, Do not I find that I cannot in the least help myself, and that strength is quite driven out of me?

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Job 6:13 [Is] not my help in me? and is wisdom driven quite from me?

Ver. 13. Is not my help in me? ] Have I not something within wherewith to sustain me amidst all my sorrows, viz. the testimony of my conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity I have had my conversation in the world, 2Co 1:12 . Lo, this is my rejoicing, this is my cordial, &c. Innuit innocentiam snare, ac vitro integritatem, saith Drusius: he meaneth the innocency and integrity of his heart; and this was the help Job knew he had in store, this was the wisdom or right reason he speaketh of in the following words: and is wisdom, or virtue, driven quite from me? no, no; that boldeth out and abideth when all things else in the world pass away and vanish, as the word Tushijah importeth. Job had a subsistence still; for his life consisted not in the abundance which he had possessed, but was now bereft of. The world calleth wealth substance, but God giveth that name to wisdom only. The world he setteth forth by a word that betokeneth change, for its mutability, Pro 3:8 , and the things thereof he called Nonentia, Job 23:5 . Wilt thou set thine eyes, saith he, upon that which is not? and which hath no price but what opinion setteth upon it? Grace, being a particle of the Divine nature, is unlosable, unperishable. – Virtus post funera venit.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)