Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 6:14
To him that is afflicted pity [should be showed] from his friend; but he forsaketh the fear of the Almighty.
14. The most probable sense of the verse is this:
Kindness from his friend is due to him that is despairing,
To him that is forsaking the fear of the Almighty.
The sense of the second clause proposed by some, else he will forsake the fear, is good in itself, but the language hardly admits it. The word “kindness” has the sense of reproach, Pro 14:34 (the verb, Pro 25:10, put to shame), and some adopt this sense here: if reproach from his friend fall upon him that is despairing, he will forsake the fear, &c. The word, however, is not used elsewhere in the Book of Job in this sense, and the interpretation destroys the strong antithesis between this verse and the opening words of the next, my brethren, &c.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
14 30. Job’s sorrowful disappointment at the position taken up towards him by his three friends
Job had freely expressed his misery in ch. 3, believing that the sympathies of his friends were entirely with him. He is
a brother noble,
Whose nature is so far from doing harms
That he suspects none.
Lear, i. 2.
And more sorrowful to him than any cold, critical words which they have uttered is the feeling that his friends have taken up such a position against him. This was what he had not looked for. And his disappointment is like that of the thirsty caravan that finds the long-looked-for waters dried up in the heat. Every emotion seems now to find a place in Job’s mind in succession. First, his disappointment, expressed in this beautiful figure, is mixed with the feeling how unworthy his friends’ conduct was. They had not acted to him as men do to one who is, as he describes himself, “despairing” and “losing hold of the fear of the Almighty.” Kindness is due to such a one, but they had turned against him from sheer feebleness of spirit, because they saw that his calamity was from God, Job 6:14-21.
Second, this mixed sadness and contempt passes into sarcasm when he tells them that he could have understood their fear if he had asked anything from them even one’s friends must not be put under that strain but he sought only sympathy, Job 6:22-23.
Third, this sarcasm then gives place to a direct appeal of great severity, in which he demands that they should shew him the sins at which they had indirectly hinted, and wonders at their superficial captiousness in fastening on the mere excited words of a man in despair; adding in terms of bitter invective that their disposition was so hard that they would cast lots for the orphan and make market of their own friend, Job 6:24-27.
Finally, he challenges them to seek the explanation of his afflictions on other principles than the supposition of his guiltiness, asking them whether, in asserting his innocence, he would lie in their faces, and if he was not able to say whether his calamities were deserved or not? Job 6:28-30.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
To him that is afflicted – Margin, melteth. The word here used ( mas) is from masas, to melt, flow down, waste away, and here means one who pines away, or is consumed under calamities. The design of this verse is, to reprove his friends for the little sympathy which they had shown for him. He had looked for consolation in his trials, and he had a right to expect it; but he says that he had met with just the opposite, and that his calamity was aggravated by the fact that they had dealt only in the language of severity.
Pity should be showed from his friend – Good renders this, shame to the man who despiseth his friend. A great variety of interpretations have been proposed of the passage, but our translation has probably expressed the true sense. If there is any place where kindness should be shown, it is when a man is sinking under accumulated sorrows to the grave.
But he forsaketh the fear of the Almighty – This may be either understood as referring to the language which Job says they had used of him – charging him with forsaking the fear of God, instead of consoling him; or it may mean that they had forsaken the fear of God in reproaching him, and in failing to comfort him; or it may mean that if such kindness were not shown to a friend in trial, he would be left to cast off the fear of God. This last interpretation is adopted by Noyes. Good supposes that it is designed to be a severe reproach of Eliphaz, for the course which he had pursued. It seems to me that this is probably the correct interpretation, and that the particle (v) here is used in an adversative sense, meaning that while it was an obvious dictate of piety to show kindness to a friend, Eliphaz had forgotten this obligation, and had indulged himself in a strain of remark which could not have been prompted by true religion. This sentiment he proceeds to illustrate by one of the most beautiful comparisons to be found in any language.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Job 6:14-30
To him that is afflicted pity should be showed from his friend.
A message to doubters
Such is the rendering of the Authorised Version; but, unfortunately, it is a rendering which misses almost entirely the thought of the sacred writer. As a glance at the context will show, the words form a part of Jobs complaint against his friends. In the darkest hour of his need, when he was despairing, and ready to faint, when, as he says, he was forsaking or losing his hold of the fear of the Almighty, they had failed him. He had looked to them for kindness, for sympathy, and trust, and lo! they had turned against him; and what he says is this: To him that is ready to faint, kindness is due from his friend. Even to him that is forsaking the fear of the Almighty. And now, beside this retranslation, set this admirable comment from the pen of one of our most brilliant Old Testament scholars: How ignored, he says, this great verse has been! How different were the history of religion if men had kept it in mind! How much sweeter and swifter would the progress of Christianity have proved! The physicians of religious perplexity have too often been Jobs comforters; and the souls in doubt who should have been gathered to the heart of the Church, with as much pity and care as the penitent or the mourner, have been scorned, or cursed, or banished, or even put to death. My message is to doubters, to those who are forsaking or losing their hold of the fear of the Almighty. The ministers of the temple of truth, it has been happily said, are of three kinds: first, there are those stationed at the gate of the temple to constrain the passers-by to enter in; secondly, there are those whose function it is to accompany inside all who have been persuaded to enter, and display and explain to them the treasures and secrets of the place; and thirdly, there are those whose duty it is to patrol the temple, keeping watch and ward, and defending the shrine from the attacks of its enemies. It was, I need hardly say, this last duty which, in the providence of God, was assigned to Bishop Butler. With what marvellous vigilance and skill he performed his Divinely appointed task every student of his great work knows full well. Defences of Christianity usually become obsolete as rapidly as modern weapons of warfare. There is perhaps no class of literature to which the saying Every age must write its own books more literally applies than the literature of Apologetics. Nevertheless, greatly as the lines both of attack and defence have shifted since the days of Butler and the eighteenth century, there are few books in the whole range of religious literature which will so well repay the care of the student today as Butlers great Analogy. Forty-five years ago, Mr. Gladstone once wrote in a letter to his friend James Knowles, Bishop Butler taught me to suspend my judgment on things I knew I did not understand. Even with his aid, I may often have been wrong. Without him, I think I should never have been right. And, oh! that this age knew the treasure it possesses in him, and neglects. Without attempting to indicate even in outline the aim and purpose of Butlers work, two or three points may be singled out for special emphasis:
1. There is one lesson at least which no student of Butler can well fail to learn, namely, to treat serious things seriously. From his youth up Butler had been accustomed to meditate deeply on some of the greatest problems of life and religion. The search after truth, he tells us, he had made the business of his life. And it wounded him to the quick to hear men, who had given scarce as many days as he had given years to thinking about Christianity, calmly assuming it to be false, and with a light heart proclaiming to all the world that there was nothing in it. That a man should be compelled, reluctantly and sorrowfully compelled, to relinquish his old faith, and to sever the ties that bound him to his past–that Butler could understand. But that any man could witness the discrediting of Christianity with something like a chuckle of satisfaction and delight, filled him with amazement. Yes, Butler is very serious, serious, it has been well said, as a gamester, serious as a physician with life and death hanging on the clearness of his thoughts and the courage of his resolve, serious as a general with a terrible and evenly balanced battle on his hands. And is not this a temper which we need more and more to cultivate today in our handling of the great questions of religion? There is something truly heartrending in the fashion in which nowadays men will suffer themselves to reason about religion, cheerfully indifferent to the magnitude of the issues at stake. Christianity may be true, Christianity may be false; at least do not let us treat it as though its truth or falsity no more concerned us than the truth or falsity of a mathematical proposition. Let us realise what Christianity is, what it has done, what it is doing, before we strive to discredit its message to men. For, remember, if Christianity be destroyed, it will not mean simply that one star has faded from the firmament above us; it will mean that the sun has gone forever from our sky.
2. My next point will bring us into closer grips with our subject. Let me remind you, still following Butlers guidance, that intellectual difficulties may be for some of us a necessary part of our probation. I do not mean that this, even supposing it to be true, is sufficient to dispose of our difficulties. But it may help us to look upon them more calmly, more reasonably, if we can learn to think of them as our part in the vast and complex moral discipline which God has appointed for the perfecting of His children on earth. It is not unreasonable to conclude, as Butler does, that what constitutes, what chiefly and peculiarly constitutes, the probation of some may be the difficulties in which the evidence of religion is involved; and their principal and distinguished trial may be how they will behave under and with respect to these difficulties. Temptation, we know, assails every man; but the methods of the tempter are manifold. Some are tempted to covetousness, some to indulgence of the flesh, some to quick and angry speech, some to sullen gloom and moroseness. But for some among us God has willed it that our testing shall come in the uncertainties and doubts which crowd in upon our minds whensoever we contemplate Him and His truth. As the hammers stroke on the metal plate reveals the hidden flaw, so in our intellectual trials does God make proof of us. He discovers our pride, He lays bare our insincerity, He tests our love of truth, the moral soundness of our whole being. Blessed, thrice blessed, is he whose life rings true under that all-revealing stroke.
3. It may be, however, this is a line of argument which does not appeal to us. Then let us, still following Butlers guidance, seek the help we need by yet another path. Is not the root of most of the things which are objected against Christianity, and consequently of most of our difficulties in regard to it, in the limitations of our knowledge? And is it not the frank recognition of these limitations which is needed, perhaps above everything else, to win back for us our lost peace of mind? Some of you will remember the quiet scorn which Butler pours upon those who, as he says, are weak enough to think they are acquainted with the whole course of things. Let reason be kept to, he goes on; and, if any part of the Scripture account of the redemption of the world by Christ can be shown to be really contrary to it, let the Scripture, in the name of God, be given up; but let not such poor creatures as we go on objecting against an infinite scheme, that we do not see the necessity or usefulness of all its parts, and call this reasoning. We ask questions which no man can answer, questions to which Christ Himself has given us no answer, and then we murmur because the heavens are silent to our cry. Who will solve for us the grievous mystery of pain? Why is nature red in tooth and claw? Why do little children die? Why is all our life so full of griefs and graves? My God, my God, why–? Questions like these are naked swords, which pierce the hand that strives to grasp them. Men will meet, said an old Greek, with many surprises when they are dead; and perhaps, adds one of our modern thinkers, one will be the recollection that when we were here we thought the ways of Almighty God so easy to argue about.
4. But, if this is so, if, indeed, we know so little, how, it may be asked, is it possible to come to a decision at all? Press the argument from our ignorance to its logical conclusion, and what does it spell but intellectual suspense, the paralysis of action? What in the long-run is Butlers doctrine but just so much grist to the agnostics mill? But to argue thus is to forget what Butler himself is careful to point out, namely, that our knowledge, though limited, is real. We know in part, but we know; we see in a mirror darkly, but we see. Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path–not more than that, but also not less than that; not light everywhere, for even revelation does not solve all questions, but light on my path, light to walk by. Many things are dark, but some at least are clear, and we can begin with these. Is not goodness the principal thing? Is not mans duty to follow after goodness, the highest goodness which is known to him? We needs must love the highest when we see it. And is not this highest goodness incarnate for us in Jesus Christ? Therefore, whatever else is dark, it must be right to follow Christ. Keep the things that perplex, and perhaps confound you, in their right place. Do not let them blind you to your first and plainest duty. After all, we are under no necessity to have a definite answer for every question which the restless wit of man can frame. Concerning many of them, it does not matter whether we have any opinion or not; neither if we have are we the better nor if we have not are we the worse. These things can wait. That which ought not to wait, which with many of us has waited far too long already, is our decision to yield ourselves to Christ. Once more I say, Whatever else is dark, it must be right to follow Christ. (G. Jackson, B. A.)
Mistaken friendship
It would be unfair to call the three men false friends. They were sincere, but being mistaken, they failed to discharge the high offices of true friendship.
I. There are times in a mans life when the need of friendship is deeply felt.
1. Man was made for friendship. Deep and constant is his craving for the love of others, and equally deep and strong is his tendency to reciprocate the same. Without friendship his nature could no more be developed than could the acorn without the sunshine or the shower. Isolation would be mans death, solitary confinement has always been felt the most severe and intolerable of punishments.
2. Man requires friendship. Without the aid of friendship he would die in infancy; he requires friendship to nourish, to succour, and to train him.
3. Affliction intensifies the need of friendship. In times of suffering the need of friendship is specially felt.
II. At these times professed friends are often terribly disappointing. Job says in language of great poetic beauty and tenderness, that he was as much disappointed with his friends now as were the troop of Tema, and the companies of Sheba, who travelling over the hot sand, parched and wearied, came to a spot where they expected to find refreshing streams and found none. My brethren have dealt deceitfully as a brook, etc. He does not mean perhaps that they were false, but that they deceived him not intentionally but by mistake.
1. Instead of pity they gave him unsympathetic talk. Had they wept and said nothing he would have been comforted; or had they spoken to the point and expressed sympathy he might have been comforted; or had they tenderly acknowledged the mystery of the Divine procedure in all, it might have soothed in some measure his anguished heart. But Eliphaz talked grandly and perhaps with a cold heart, he never touched the mark but by implication, charged him with being a great sinner because he was a great sufferer, and strongly reprobated his language of distress.
2. Instead of pity they gave him intrusive talk. Did I say bring unto me, or give a reward for me of your substance? etc. If a man applies to his friends for pecuniary aid, and that aid is refused him he may be disappointed, but he cannot at once condemn them and charge them with unkindness, as they may be under circumstances which render it perfectly impossible for them to comply with his request. But if he asks of them nothing but commiseration and sympathy, and even these are denied him, he cannot but consider such denial as a great piece of inhumanity and cruelty. Now this was precisely the case with Job.–Bernard.
3. Instead of pity they gave him irrelevant talk. Teach me, and I will hold my tongue; and cause me to understand wherein I have erred. How forcible are right words! but what doth your arguing prove? etc. In all this he evidently reproves Eliphaz for the irrelevancy of his talk. He seems to say, you have not taught me anything, you have not explained the true cause of my affliction. Nothing that you have said is applicable to me in my miserable condition.
4. Instead of pity they gave him ungenerous talk. Here the patriarch acknowledges that the extravagant language which, in the wildness of his anguish, he used in the fourth chapter was mere wind. Do you imagine to reprove words? etc., and states that their carping at such utterances was as cruel as the overwhelming of the fatherless. Language spoken in certain moods of mind should be allowed to pass by, almost without notice. Anguish often maddens the mind, and causes the tongue to run riot. It is ungenerous in friends to notice language which, under the tide of strong emotions, may be forced from us.
(1) He urges them to look upon him, and not at his words.
(2) He assures them of the sincerity even of his language. I have an inner sense by which I can determine what is right or wrong in speech. Mistaken friendship is sometimes as pernicious and irritating as false friendship. (Homilist.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 14. To him that is afflicted pity should be showed from his friend; but he forsaketh the fear of the Almighty.] The Vulgate gives a better sense, Qui tollit ab amico suo misericordiam, timorem Domini dereliquit, “He who takes away mercy from his friend, hath cast off the fear of the Lord.” The word lammas, which we render to him who is AFFLICTED, from masah, to dissolve, or waste away, is in thirty-two of Dr. Kennicott’s and De Rossi’s MSS. lemoes, “to him that despiseth his friend;” and hence the passage may be read: To him who despiseth his friend, it is a reproach; and he will forsake the fear of the Almighty: or, as Mr. Good translates,
“Shame to the man who despiseth his friend!
He indeed hath departed from the fear of the Almighty.”
Eliphaz had, in effect, despised Job; and on this ground had acted any thing but the part of a friend towards him; and he well deserved the severe stroke which he here receives. A heathen said, Amicus certus in re incerta cernitur; the full sense of which we have in our common adage:-
A FRIEND IN NEED is a FRIEND INDEED
Job’s friends, so called, supported each other in their attempts to blacken the character of this worthy man; and their hand became the heavier, because they supposed the hand of God was upon him. To each of them, individually, might be applied the words of another heathen: –
_____________ Absentem qui rodit amicum,
Qui non defendit alio culpante; solutos
Qui captat risus hominum, famamque dicacis,
Fingere qui non visa potest; commissa tacere
Qui nequit; hic niger est; hunc tu, Romane, caveto.
HOR. Satyr. lib. i., s. iv., ver. 81.
He who, malignant, tears an absent friend;
Or, when attack’d by others, don’t defend;
Who trivial bursts of laughter strives to raise,
And courts, of prating petulance, the praise;
Of things he never saw who tells his tale,
And friendship’s secrets knows not to conceal;__
This man is vile; here, Roman, fix your mark;
His soul’s as black as his complexion’s dark.
FRANCIS.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
To him that is afflicted, Heb. to him that is melted or dissolved with afflictions, or in the furnace of afflictions; that is, in extreme miseries; for such persons are said to be melted, as Psa 22:14; 107:26; 119:28; Nah 2:10.
From his friend: his friend, such as thou, O Eliphaz, pretendest to be to me, should show kindness, benignity, and compassion in his judgment of him, and carriage towards him, and not pass such unmerciful and heavy censures upon him, nor load him with reproaches.
But he forsaketh the fear of the Almighty; but thou hast no love or pity for thy neighbour and friend; which is a plain evidence that thou art guilty of that which thou didst charge me with, even with the want of the fear of God; for didst thou truly fear God, thou couldst not, and durst not, be so unmerciful to thy brother, both because God hath severely forbidden and condemned that disposition and carriage, and because God is able to punish thee for it, and mete unto thee the same hard measure which thou meetest to me. But this verse is and may be otherwise rendered, Should a reproach (for so the Hebrew chesed oft signifies) be laid upon him that is afflicted by his friend, even that he forsaketh the fear of the Almighty? Should my friend have fastened such a reproach upon me, than which none is worse, that I am an impious man, and destitute of the fear of God, Job 4:6-8. This he mentions, as that which was most grievous and intolerable to him.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
14. pitya proverb. Charity isthe love which judges indulgently of our fellow men: it is put on apar with truth in Pr 3:3, forthey together form the essence of moral perfection [UMBREIT].It is the spirit of Christianity (1Pe 4:8;1Co 13:7; Pro 10:12;Pro 17:17). If it ought to beused towards all men, much more towards friends. But he who does notuse it forsaketh (renounceth) the fear of the Almighty (Jas2:13).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
To him that is afflicted pity [should be showed] from his friend,…. An “afflicted” man is an object of pity, one that is afflicted of God; either inwardly with a wounded spirit, with a sense of God’s displeasure, with divine desertions, with the arrows of the Almighty sticking in him, the poison thereof drinking up his spirits; or outwardly with diseases of body, with want of the necessaries of life, with loss of near relations, as well as substance, which was Job’s case; or afflicted by Satan, shot at, sifted and buffered by him, distressed by his temptations, suggestions, and solicitations; or afflicted by men, reproached and persecuted for righteousness sake: in all such cases and circumstances “pity” should be showed; which is an inward affection of the mind, a sympathy of spirit, a sensible feeling of the afflictions of others, and which is expressed by gestures, motions, and actions, as by visiting them in their affliction, speaking comfortably to them, and relieving their necessities according to ability, and as the case requires: and this may be expected from a “friend”, and what the law of friendship requires, whether it be in a natural and civil sense, or in a religious and spiritual one; the union between friends being so near and close, that they are, as it were, one soul, as David and Jonathan were; and as the people of God, members of the same body are, so that if one suffers, all the rest do, or should suffer and sympathize with it: and though this duty is not always performed, at least as it should be, by natural and spiritual friends, yet this grace is always shown by God, our best of friends, who pities his children and by Christ, who is a friend that loves at all times, a brother born for adversity, and that sticks closer than any brother, and cannot but be touched with the feeling of the infirmities of his friends. The words may be rendered, “to him that is melted” c; afflictions are like a furnace or refining pot for the melting of metals, and are called the furnace of afflictions: and saints are the metal, which are put into it; and afflictions also are the fire, of fiery trials, which heat and melt, and by which means the dross of sin and corruption is removed, and the graces of the spirit are tried and made the brighter; though here it rather signifies the melting of the heart like wax or water through the affliction, and denotes the anguish and distress, the trembling and fears, a person is in through it, being overwhelmed and borne down by it, which was Job’s case: or “he that melts pity”, or “whose pity melts”, or “melts in pity to his friend, he forsakes” d, c. that is, he that fails in pity, is destitute of compassion, and shuts up the bowels of it to his friend in distress, has not the fear of God before his eyes and this sense makes Job himself to be the friend in affliction, and Eliphaz, and those with him, the persons that are deficient in their mercy, pity, and compassion. Some render the words e, “should reproach [be cast] on him that is afflicted, as that he forsakes the fear of the Almighty?” the word for pity is so used in Pr 14:34; and the reproach on Job was, that he had cast off the fear of God, Job 4:6. This grieved him most of all, and added to his affliction, and of which he complains as very cruel usage; and very cutting it was that he should be reckoned a man destitute of the fear of God, and that because he was afflicted by him; though rather the following words,
but he forsaketh the fear of the Almighty, are a charge upon his friend Eliphaz for not showing pity to him in his affliction, which was tacitly forsaking the fear of God. Job here recriminates and retorts the charge of want of the fear of God on Eliphaz himself; for to show mercy to an afflicted friend is a religious act, a part of pure and undefiled religion, a branch of the fear of God; and he that neglects it is so far wanting in it, and acts contrary to his profession of God, of fear of him, and love to him; see Jas 1:26; or “otherwise he forsakes”, c. f.
c “liquefacto”, Vatablus, Mercerus, Beza so Ben Gersom. d “Cujus liquescit benignitas”, Junius Tremellius, Piscator, “qui misericordia erga amicum contabescit”, Schultens. e Mercerus, Vatablus, so Ben Gersom. Some interpret it as a charge that he forsakes both mercy and the fear of the Lord so R. Simeon Bar Tzemach, Sephorno, and Ben Melech. f So Pagninus & Beza.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
14 To him who is consumed gentleness is due from his friend,
Otherwise he might forsake the fear of the Almighty.
15 My brothers are become false as a torrent,
As the bed of torrents which vanish away –
16 They were blackish from ice,
Snow is hidden in them –
17 In the time, when warmth cometh to them, they are destroyed.
It becometh hot, they are extinguished from their place.
Ewald supplies between Job 6:14 and Job 6:14 two lines which have professedly fallen out (“from a brother sympathy is due to the oppressed of God, in order he may not succumb to excessive grief”). Hitzig strongly characterizes this interpolation as a “pure swindle.” There is really nothing wanting; but we need not even take , with Hitz., in the signification reproach (like Pro 14:34): if reproach cometh to the sufferer from his friend, he forsaketh the fear of God. (from , liquefieri ) is one who is inwardly melted, the disheartened. Such an one should receive from his friend, i.e., that he should restore him (Gal 6:1). The waw ( Job 6:14) is equivalent to alioqui with the future subjunctive (vid., Ges. 127, 5). Harshness might precipitate him into the abyss from which love will keep him back. So Schnurrer: Afflicto exhibenda est ab amico ipsius humanitas, alioqui hic reverentiam Dei exuit . Such harshness instead of charity meets him from his brothers, i.e., friends beloved as brothers. In vain he has looked to them for reviving consolation. Theirs is no comfort; it is like the dried-up water of a wady. is a mountain or forest brook, which comes down from the height, and in spring is swollen by melting ice and the snow that thaws on the mountain-tops; , i.e., a torrent swollen by winter water. The melting blocks of ice darken the water of such a wady, and the snow falling together is quickly hidden in its bosom ( ). If they begin to be warmed ( Pual , cognate to , Eze 21:3, aduri , and , comburere ), suddenly they are reduced to nothing ( , exstingui ); they vanish away , when it becomes hot. The suffix is, with Ew., Olsh., and others, to be taken as neuter; not with Hirz., to be referred to a suppressed : when the season grows hot. job bewails the disappointment he has experienced, the ”decline” of charity
(Note: Oetinger says that Job 6:15-20 describe those who get ”consumption” when they are obliged to extend “the breasts of compassion” to their neighbour.)
still further, by keeping to the figure of the mountain torrent.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
14 To him that is afflicted pity should be showed from his friend; but he forsaketh the fear of the Almighty. 15 My brethren have dealt deceitfully as a brook, and as the stream of brooks they pass away; 16 Which are blackish by reason of the ice, and wherein the snow is hid: 17 What time they wax warm, they vanish: when it is hot, they are consumed out of their place. 18 The paths of their way are turned aside; they go to nothing, and perish. 19 The troops of Tema looked, the companies of Sheba waited for them. 20 They were confounded because they had hoped; they came thither, and were ashamed. 21 For now ye are nothing; ye see my casting down, and are afraid.
Eliphaz had been very severe in his censures of Job; and his companions, though as yet they had said little, yet had intimated their concurrence with him. Their unkindness therein poor Job here complains of, as an aggravation of his calamity and a further excuse of his desire to die; for what satisfaction could he ever expect in this world when those that should have been his comforters thus proved his tormentors?
I. He shows what reason he had to expect kindness from them. His expectation was grounded upon the common principles of humanity (v. 14): “To him that is afflicted, and that is wasting and melting under his affliction, pity should be shown from his friend; and he that does not show that pity forsakes the fear of the Almighty.” Note, 1. Compassion is a debt owing to those that are in affliction. The least which those that are at ease can do for those that are pained and in anguish is to pity them,–to manifest the sincerity of a tender concern for them, and to sympathize with them,–to take cognizance of their case, enquire into their grievances, hear their complaints, and mingle their tears with theirs,–to comfort them, and to do all they can to help and relieve them: this well becomes the members of the same body, who should feel for the grievances of their fellow-members, not knowing how soon the same may be their own. 2. Inhumanity is impiety and irreligion. He that withholds compassion from his friend forsakes the fear of the Almighty. So the Chaldee. How dwells the love of God in that man? 1 John iii. 17. Surely those have no fear of the rod of God upon themselves who have no compassion for those that feel the smart of it. See Jam. i. 27. 3. Troubles are the trials of friendship. When a man is afflicted he will see who are his friends indeed and who are but pretenders; for a brother is born for adversity,Pro 17:17; Pro 18:24.
II. He shows how wretchedly he was disappointed in his expectations from them (v. 15): “My brethren, who should have helped me, have dealt deceitfully as a brook.” They came by appointment, with a great deal of ceremony, to mourn with him and to comfort him (ch. ii. 11); and some extraordinary things were expected from such wise, learned, knowing men, and Job’s particular friends. None questioned but that the drift of their discourses would be to comfort Job with the remembrance of his former piety, the assurance of God’s favour to him, and the prospect of a glorious issue; but, instead of this, they most barbarously fall upon him with their reproaches and censures, condemn him as a hypocrite, insult over his calamities, and pour vinegar, instead of oil, into his wounds, and thus they deal deceitfully with him. Note, It is fraud and deceit not only to violate our engagements to our friends, but to frustrate their just expectations from us, especially the expectations we have raised. Note, further, It is our wisdom to cease from man. We cannot expect too little from the creature nor too much from the Creator. It is no new thing even for brethren to deal deceitfully (Jer 9:4; Jer 9:5; Mic 7:5); let us therefore put our confidence in the rock of ages, not in broken reeds-in the fountain of life, not in broken cisterns. God will out-do our hopes as much as men come short of them. This disappointment which Job met with he here illustrates by the failing of brooks in summer.
1. The similitude is very elegant, v. 15-20. (1.) Their pretensions are fitly compared to the great show which the brooks make when they are swollen with the waters of a land flood, by the melting of the ice and snow, which make them blackish or muddy, v. 16. (2.) His expectations from them, which their coming so solemnly to comfort him had raised, he compares to the expectation which the weary thirsty travellers have of finding water in the summer where they have often seen it in great abundance in the winter, v. 19. The troops of Tema and Sheba, the caravans of the merchants of those countries, whose road lay through the deserts of Arabia, looked and waited for supply of water from those brooks. “Hard by here,” says one, “A little further,” says another, “when I last travelled this way, there was water enough; we shall have that to refresh us.” Where we have met with relief or comfort we are apt to expect it again; and yet it does not follow; for, (3.) The disappointment of his expectation is here compared to the confusion which seizes the poor travellers when they find heaps of sand where they expected floods of water. In the winter, when they were not thirsty, there was water enough. Every one will applaud and admire those that are full and in prosperity. But in the heat of summer, when they needed water, then it failed them; it was consumed (v. 17); it was turned aside, v. 18. When those who are rich and high are sunk and impoverished, and stand in need of comfort, then those who before gathered about them stand aloof from them, those who before commended them are forward to run them down. Thus those who raise their expectations high from the creature will find it fail them when it should help them; whereas those who make God their confidence have help in the time of need, Heb. iv. 16. Those who make gold their hope will sooner or later be ashamed of it, and of their confidence in it (Ezek. vii. 19); and the greater their confidence was the greater their shame will be: They were confounded because they had hoped, v. 20. We prepare confusion for ourselves by our vain hopes: the reeds break under us because we lean upon them. If we build a house upon the sand, we shall certainly be confounded, for it will fall in the storm, and we must thank ourselves for being such fools as to expect it would stand. We are not deceived unless we deceive ourselves.
2. The application is very close (v. 21): For now you are nothing. They seemed to be somewhat, but in conference they added nothing to him. Allude to Gal. ii. 6. He was never the wiser, never the better, for the visit they made him. Note, Whatever complacency we may take, or whatever confidence we may put, in creatures, how great soever they may seem and how dear soever they may be to us, one time or other we shall say of them, Now you are nothing. When Job was in prosperity his friends were something to him, he took complacency in them and their society; but “Now you are nothing, now I can find no comfort but in God.” It were well for us if we had always such convictions of the vanity of the creature, and its insufficiency to make us happy, as we have sometimes had, or shall have on a sick-bed, a death-bed, or in trouble of conscience: “Now you are nothing. You are not what you have been, what you should be, what you pretend to be, what I thought you would have been; for you see my casting down and are afraid. When you saw me in my elevation you caressed me; but now that you see me in my dejection you are shy of me, are afraid of showing yourselves kind, lest I should thereby be emboldened to beg something of you, or to borrow” (compare v. 22); “you are afraid lest, if you own me, you should be obliged to keep me.” Perhaps they were afraid of catching his distemper or of coming within smell of the noisomeness of it. It is not good, either out of pride or niceness, for love of our purses or of our bodies, to be shy of those who are in distress and afraid of coming near them. Their case may soon be our own.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
3. Bitter disappointment from his friends, who are unreasonably hard (Job. 6:14-23)
TEXT 6:1423
14 To him that is ready to faint kindness should be showed from his friend;
Even to him that forsaketh the fear of the Almighty.
15 My brethren have dealt deceitfully as a brook,
As the channel of brooks that pass away;
16 Which are black by reason of the ice,
And wherein the snow hideth itself:
17 What time they wax warm, they vanish;
When it is hot, they are consumed out of their place.
18 The caravans that travel by the way of them turn aside;
They go up into the waste, and perish.
19 The caravans of Tema looked,
The companies of Sheba waited for them.
20 They were put to shame because they had hoped;
They came thither, and were confounded.
21 For now ye are nothing;
Ye see a terror, and are afraid.
22 Did I say, Give unto me?
Or, Offer a present for me of your substance?
23 Or, Deliver me from the adversarys hand?
Or, Redeem me from the hand of the oppressors?
COMMENT 6:1423
Job. 6:14The text of only three words literally says For the faintingfrom his friendloyalty. Job attacks his would-be sympathizers with this chargeyour lack of sympathy reveals your lack of true covenant concern, i.e., righteousness. Kindness (hesedcovenant love) is due to a friend. If his friends really cared, they would treat Job with kindness, not groundless insinuations of his guilt.
Job. 6:15Note that Job still calls the three friends brethren, not foes. But he describes them as a brook (nachal), a stream which is a raging torrent during the rainy season, but dried up during the summer, when one really needs help. The streams of sympathy have dried upHer. Job. 15:18.
Job. 6:16This verse describes a thaw which breaks the ice and sends the waters raging downward. The phrase hideth itself means to melt.[88]
[88] See M. Dahood, Biblical 33,1952, 206; also Biblica, 43, 1962, 65.
Job. 6:17The A. V. contains a very obtuse translationwax warm (wax from old German waxento grow, the root zarab is found only here and means seared or scorched). When the snow and ice melt, they (the torrents) disappear,[89] or are extinguished, Job. 18:5-6; the friends are as unreliable as a wadi which is empty.
[89] G. R. Driver, Zeitschriftfur die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, N. S., XXIV, 1953,216ff.
Job. 6:18The travelers (A. V. caravans) expect to find water in the desert, but coming to them they find none; they soon perish under the scorching sun. This is Jobs blistering attack on his friends. This disappointment describes Jobs despair.
Job. 6:19Tema is an oasis Southeast of the head of the Gulf of AqabaIsa. 21:14; Jer. 25:23. Sheba is South Arabia, which is the home of the Sabean raiders (chp. Job. 1:15), but here they are merchants.[90]
[90] W. F. Albright, Bulletin the American Society of Oriental Research, 163, 1961, 41, n. 24.
Job. 6:20The caravans from the south sift us to dry oases. Jobs friends have been compared to dry wadi and now dry oases. There is no possibility that they can be of help to him.
Job. 6:21There is a play on words hereyou see (tiru) and you fear (tireu) 2Sa. 10:19. The sight of Job in his desperate and horrible condition has frightened his friends out of their wits and caused them to forget their covenant (hesed) of loyalty to him. His oppressors are tyrants who would sell him, but not redeem him.
Job. 6:22-23Job has not asked for money (which their covenant would have obliged), only friendship. Jeremiah cries, I have not lent or borrowed, yet everyone curses me, Jer. 15:10. Job responds here with strong sarcasm. He has not asked for charity, though he has lost everything; he asks only for concern.
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
(14) But he forsaketh the fear of the Almighty.It is difficult to determine the precise relation of dependent clauses in an archaic language like the Hebrew; but the Authorised Version is, at all events, not correct here, the sense rather being, Even to one that forsaketh the fear of the Almighty; or, perhaps, better still, lest he should forsake; or, he may even forsake, &c.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
Second strophe The withholding of sympathy has been like the failure of a summer brook, Job 6:14-17.
14. The pity his condition calls for, they (his friends) have denied him.
To him, etc. Literally, To the despairing, from his friend, (is) pity. The pity of a friend is spontaneous. Its flow to such a despairing sufferer as Job is like a fountain, natural and unforced. Their sympathy has consisted of words and ceremony; hence they are not true friends. This prepares us for the coming portrayal of deceitful friendship.
Afflicted , literally, melted down, dissolved; a graphic description of the effect of sorrow on Job.
Pity Umbreit says of pity, hhesedh, (which may be rendered also kindness or love,) that it is the friendly and indulgent judgment of our fellow-men; the true love which is the spirit of Christianity; and it is put (Pro 3:3) on a par with truth. They together form the principal elements of moral perfection, and are recommended to our care as a double talisman of perfect virtue.
But he forsaketh Concerning the meaning of the preceding clause there is but little doubt; the confessedly great difficulty of the present clause turns for the most part on the rendering of the particle but . The old reading of the Targum, Vulgate, Luther, “He who withholds mercy from his neighbour, he forsakes the fear of the Almighty,” entirely ignores the particle, and is now, with the exception of Merx, quite given up. Some modern expositors, such as Schlottmann, Renan, Dillmann, and Zockler, read, “Even if he should have forsaken,” etc. The more satisfactory exposition is that of Delitzsch, Schnurrer, Hengstenberg, Wordsworth, Canon Cook, etc., “ Otherwise he forsaketh.” etc., that is, unless he receives pity from his friend a reading that is justified by the occasional use of the particle, as in Gesenius, Thesaurus, p. 397 . For want of human sympathy a man may fall away from his God. Nothing can more forcibly express the power of Christian love. It is conservative it may keep others from evil. A kind word, a sympathetic tear, a charitable deed, is a little thing, but an engine of might that any one may wield. Sympathy, oneness of feeling, is a magic power to lift the sorrowful and despairing up from the abyss. It is like the golden chain let down from heaven, as the ancients fabled. Through sympathy the resources of the one, supplement the weakness of another. The field of responsibility vastly enlarges, when we behold it embracing the little deeds of charitable love we might have done. If sorrow could enter heaven, it would be because we have done so little for Christ and his suffering ones on earth.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Job Criticizes Eliphaz for his Conduct
v. 14. To him that is affiliated pity should be showed from his friend, v. 15. My brethren have dealt deceitfully as a brook, v. 16. which are blackish v. 17. what time they wax warm, they vanish, v. 18. The paths of their way are turned aside, v. 19. The troops of Tema looked, v. 20. They were confounded because they had hoped, v. 21. For now ye are nothing, v. 22. Did I say, Bring unto me? or, Give a reward for me of your substance? v. 23. Or, Deliver me from the enemy’s hand? or, Redeem me from the hand of the mighty, v. 24. Teach me, and I will hold my tongue; v. 25. v. 26. Do ye imagine to reprove words, v. 27. Yea, ye overwhelm the fatherless, v. 28. Now, therefore, be content, look upon me, v. 29. Return, I pray you, let it not be iniquity; yea, return again, my righteousness is in it. v. 30. Is there iniquity in my tongue?
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
Job 6:14. To him that is afflicted Should a man who is utterly undone be insulted by his friend? and should he tempt him to forsake the fear of the Almighty? Heath; who observes, that this clause plainly refers to chap. Job 5:1. The words of Eliphaz seem to have sunk very deep into Job’s mind, and he resents them extremely.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
(14) To him that is afflicted pity should be shewed from his friend; but he forsaketh the fear of the Almighty. (15) My brethren have dealt deceitfully as a brook, and as the stream of brooks they pass away; (16) Which are blackish by reason of the ice, and wherein the snow is hid: (17) What time they wax warm, they vanish: when it is hot, they are consumed out of their place. (18) The paths of their way are turned aside; they go to nothing, and perish. (19) The troops of Tema looked, the companies of Sheba waited for them. (20) They were confounded because they had hoped; they came thither, and were ashamed. (21) For now ye are nothing; ye see my casting down, and are afraid. (22) Did I say, Bring unto me? or, Give a reward for me of your substance? (23) Or, Deliver me from the enemy’s hand? or, Redeem me from the hand of the mighty? (24) Teach me, and I will hold my tongue: and cause me to understand wherein I have erred. (25) How forcible are right words! but what doth your arguing reprove? (26) Do ye imagine to reprove words, and the speeches of one that is desperate, which are as wind? (27) Yea, ye overwhelm the fatherless, and ye dig a pit for your friend. (28) Now therefore be content, look upon me; for it is evident unto you if I lie. (29) Return, I pray you, let it not be iniquity; yea, return again, my righteousness is in it. (30) Is there iniquity in my tongue? cannot my taste discern perverse things?
In all these verses we have the warm expostulations of the man of Uz, concerning the unkindness, and deceitfulness, of those who professed friendship for him. They came, as was understood, to comfort him. Whereas everything that Eliphaz had hitherto advanced, in the name of himself and those who came with him, was directly full of reproof. He therefore compares them to the brook, which from its fulness, during the fall of rain, promised supply, but in the scorching summer when really needed, offereth nothing. The latter part of Job’s speech is uncommonly striking. He apologizeth for any inadvertent expressions, which had dropped from him, from the desperate state of his afflictions; but beg them to observe that in all this, he had not condemned GOD, though he had lamented himself. His righteousness, by which no doubt he means to imply, his righteous thoughts of GOD, were the same. And thus, though Satan had charged him with hypocrisy, and his friends contended for the same, yet there was no hypocrisy with him.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Job 6:14 To him that is afflicted pity [should be shewed] from his friend; but he forsaketh the fear of the Almighty.
Ver. 14. To him that is afflicted ] Heb. melted, viz. in the furnace of affliction, which melteth men’s hearts, and maketh them malleable, as fire doth the hardest metals, Psa 22:15 Jos 7:5 .
Pity should be shewed from his friend
From his friend
But he hath forsaken the fear of the Almighty
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Job 6:14-23
Job 6:14-23
JOB LEVELED HIS COMPLAINT AGAINST HIS FRIENDS
“To him that is ready to faint kindness should be showed from his friend;
Even to him that forsaketh the fear of the Almighty.
My brethren have dealt deceitfully as a brook,
As the channel of brooks that pass away;
Which are black by reason of the ice,
And wherein the snow hideth itself.
What time they wax warm, they vanish;
When it is hot, they are consumed out of their place.
The caravans that travel by the way of them turn aside;
They go up into the waste and perish.
The Caravans of Tema looked,
The companies of Sheba waited for them.
They were put to shame because they had hoped;
They came thither and were confounded.
For now ye are nothing;
Ye are a terror, and are afraid.
Did I say, Give unto me?
Or, Offer a present to me of your substance?
Or, Deliver me from the adversary’s hand?
Or, Redeem me from the hand of the oppressors?”
In these verses, Job not only replied to Eliphaz, but to all of his comforters.
“To him that is ready to faint should be showed kindness from his friend” (Job 6:14). This was the very thing his three friends had not shown Job. Job even went further and declared that such sympathy and kindness should be extended to a person, `if he had forsaken,’ God (Job 6:14). Hesser described this anguished cry as:
“One of the most pathetic lines in literature.” This verse carries with it the strong implication that, “Eliphaz had let Job down.” “Job’s friends had come to him physically, but they had disappointed him because they showed no pity.”
“My brethren have dealt deceitfully as a brook” (Job 6:15). The type of brook to which Job compared his friends was that intermittent `wash’ or wady of the desert, sure to be dry if any one depended on it for water.
“The caravans of Tema … companies of Sheba” (Job 6:19). These were probably well known examples of caravans that were lost in the desert because of the untimely failure of such `brooks.’ The tragedies that befell them, unknown to us, might have been remembered by many in Job’s generation.
DeHoff explained what Job meant by this remarkable simile. “When Job was in prosperity, his friends were loyal to him; but, when he was struck down with suffering, they rejected him.” They were just like those undependable `brooks’ that had water in the winter time, but none at all when the water was needed.
“Ye are nothing” (Job 6:21). That was just Job’s way of saying his friends were worthless as far as any benefit to Job was concerned. The prodigal son in the parable also saw all of his friends forsake him when he ran out of money.
“Ye see a terror, and are afraid” (Job 6:21). Here Job gives the reason for his friend’s refusal to comfort him. “Their conduct is dictated by fear that, if they show compassion on Job, God may view it as criticism of his providence and suddenly plague them like Job.”
“Did I say give unto me” (Job 6:21)? In this and the following two verses, “Job’s friends treat him like he had requested a loan, plenty of advice, but no hard cash.” “Job desired only one thing of his friends, sympathy; and that he did not get.”
E.M. Zerr:
Job 6:14. Job accused Eliphaz of overlooking the respect he should have for the Almighty. Because of having done that, he has not pitied Job as he should.
Job 6:15. In this passage Job recognized his three friends as his brethren. I wish the student to see my comments on Job 2:11.
Job 6:16-18. The sum of this paragraph is a comparison to the unsteady, temporary, off-and-on nature of many streams. They are uncertain as to their continuance, and just as one might think of refreshing himself by them they are gone. This would be particularly true of the streams that are fed by snow. When the sun’s rays would become warm they would soon disappear. That illustrated the fickleness of the friendship of Job’s brethren as he considered it.
Job 6:19-21. Troop of Tema means the caravans of the people of Tema who were descendants of Ishmael. They were wanderers and in their traveling would desire to obtain water for themselves and for their beasts. When these tourists thought of getting such refreshments from these streams they would be doomed to disappointment by their sudden disappearance. Likewise, just when Job would look to his friends for comfort they disappointed him.
Job 6:22-23. Job had not asked these friends to give him any of their property to replace what he had lost. He was willing to endure such a loss as that if they had only not made his lot more bitter by their false reasoning.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
fear
(See Scofield “Psa 19:9”).
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
To him: Job 4:3, Job 4:4, Job 16:5, Job 19:21, Pro 17:17, Rom 12:15, 1Co 12:26, 2Co 11:29, Gal 6:2, Heb 13:3
is afflicted: Heb. melteth
he forsaketh: Gen 20:11, Psa 36:1-3, Luk 23:40
Reciprocal: 1Sa 1:6 – adversary 1Sa 1:8 – why weepest Job 2:11 – friends Job 15:4 – castest off Job 16:4 – if your soul Job 19:19 – they whom Pro 25:19 – General Mic 7:5 – ye not in Luk 10:31 – he passed Phi 1:16 – supposing 2Pe 2:17 – are wells
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Job 6:14. To him that is afflicted Hebrew, To him that is melted, or dissolved with afflictions: or, as Dr. Waterland renders it, To one that is wasting away; pity should be showed from his friend His friend, such as thou, O Eliphaz, pretendest to be to me, should show kindness and compassion in his judgment of him, and behaviour toward him, and not pass such unmerciful censures upon him as thou hast passed upon me, nor load him with reproaches; but he forsaketh the fear of the Almighty Thou hast no love or pity for thy friend; a plain evidence that thou art guilty of what thou didst charge me with, even of the want of the fear of God. The least which those that are at ease can do for them that are pained, is to pity them, to feel a tender concern for them, and to sympathize with them.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Job 6:14-27. Jobs Sorrowful Disappointment in his Friends.He begins by citing a proverb. The despairing man who is slipping from religion, looks for help and sympathy from his friends. The friends, however, have proved like a brook that disappoints the thirsty caravan (Job 6:15-20). When the thaw comes, the brooks are swollen black with broken ice and melting snow (Job 6:16). But in summer they dry up (Job 6:17), and the caravan, finding no water where they expected, as a last desperate resource turn aside from the path into the desert to look for water, and perish miserably (Job 6:18). Tema (Isa 21:14*) and Sheba (Job 1:15*) are Arabian tribes. The whole simile of the brook is very fine. Its point is that Jobs friends have been effusive in their friendship in the days of his prosperity, when he did not need their help. Now in his adversity and his dire need they fail him. With Job 6:21 Job turns directly to the friends. They are terror-stricken by his calamity. Yet he had not asked from them so much as a ransom in money from some powerful oppressor (Job 6:22 f.). All he asks is real instruction. Let them explain to him the error of his speech, and he will cease from his complaint. Job cannot feel that Eliphaz has said anything to the purpose. In Job 6:27 he bursts out into strong invective. The friends would cast lots over the fatherless, and bargain over their friend. The fatherless is to be understood as the child of the debtor. After his death the ruthless creditors cast lots for the possession of the child as a slave (Davidson).
Job 6:14 is difficult: in the above exposition despairing is substituted for ready to faint. Duhm reads, He who withholdeth kindness from the despairing forsaketh the fear of the Almighty, and regards the verse as a gloss on Job 6:15 f.
Job 6:15. Instead of pass away translate overflow.
Job 6:21. Neither text nor mg. is satisfactory in the first clause. Emend so have ye been to me.
Job 6:27 does not seem very suitable in present context. Perhaps it should follow Job 6:23.
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
Job’s disappointment with his friends 6:14-23
"If, up to this point, Job has been praying, or at least soliloquizing, now he makes a more direct attack on the friends (the ’you’ in Job 6:21 is plural)." [Note: Ibid., p. 130.]
"Eliphaz has attacked Job’s complaint; Job now attacks Eliphaz’ ’consolation.’" [Note: Kline, p. 468.]
Job’s friends had not been loyal to him when they judged him as they had. "Kindness" in Job 6:14 is literally "loyalty." Consequently, Job was close to forsaking his fear of God. Job’s friends should have encouraged and supported him. Instead they proved as disappointing as a wadi. A wadi is a streambed that is full of water in the rainy season, but when the heat of summer comes it dries up completely. Job replied that his friends were no help in his distress.
Evidently, Job’s friends were afraid of him (Job 6:21) in the sense that they feared that if they comforted him, God would view them as approving of his sin and would punish them as well. [Note: Rowley, pp. 73-74. Cf. Andrew Blackwood Jr., A Devotional Introduction to Job, p. 65.]
"Verse 21 is the climax of Job’s reaction to his friends’ counsel [thus far]. They offered no help." [Note: Smick, "Job," p. 901.]
"There is no act of pastoral care more unnerving than trying to say the right thing to someone hysterical with grief. It is early in the day for Job to lose patience with them. But the point is not whether Job is unfair: this is how he feels. The truth is already in sight that only God can speak the right word. And Job’s wits are sharp enough to forecast where Eliphaz’s trend of thought will end-in open accusation of sin. Hence he gets in first with a pre-emptive strike, anticipating in the following denials his great speech of exculpation in chapter 31." [Note: Andersen, p. 133.]