Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 6:21
For now ye are nothing; ye see [my] casting down, and are afraid.
21. ye are nothing ] Or, are become nothing. Job applies his comparison. Another reading is: ye are become it, i. e. the deceitful, disappointing brook. The general sense remains the same.
my casting down ] lit. ye see a terror. Job’s comparison of his friends to the brook is graphic and telling. In winter these brooks are full, but in summer when the thirsty caravan needs them and looks for them they are found to have disappeared before the heat. And Job’s friends may have been effusive in their offers of friendship when friendships were abundant, but now when he needs their aid, the sight of his terrible affliction, like the summer heat, dissipates their sympathy and makes them “nothing,” without power to help. In the words “ye see a terror and are afraid” Job insinuates more than that his friends are paralysed at the sight of his calamity, he means probably that, judging his calamity to be from God, they have not courage to shew him sympathy, cf. Job 13:7 seq.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
For now ye are as nothing – Margin, or, Ye are like to it, or them. In the margin also the word nothing is rendered not. This variety arises from a difference of reading in the Hebrew text, many MSS. having instead of ( lo’), not, ( lo’), to him, or to it. Which is correct, it is not easy to determine. Rosenmuller supposes that it is only a variety in writing the word l’, where the waw is often used for . The probability is, that it means, that they were as nothing – like the stream that had disappeared. This is the point of the comparison; and this Job now applies to his friends. They had promised much by their coming – like the streams when swollen by rains and melted ice. But now they were found to be nothing.
Ye see my casting down – chathath – my being broken or crushed; my calamity. Vulgate, plugam. Septuagint, trauma, wound.
And are afraid – Are timid and fearful. You shrink back; you dare not approach the subject boldly, or come to me with words of consolation. You came with a professed intention to administer comfort, but your courage fails.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 21. For now ye are nothing] Ye are just to me as those deceitful torrents to the caravans of Tema and Sheba; they were nothing to them; ye are nothing to me.
Ye see my casting down] Ye see that I have been hurried from my eminence into want and misery, as the flood from the top of the mountains, which is divided, evaporated, and lost in the desert.
And are afraid.] Ye are terrified at the calamity that has come upon me; and instead of drawing near to comfort me, ye start back at my appearance.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
He gives the reason why he charged them with deceitfulness, and compared them to these deceitful brooks. Nothing, or, as nothing; the note of similitude being oft understood. Heb. as not, i.e. you are to me as if you had not been, or as if you had never come to me, for I have no benefit nor comfort from you and your discourse, but only an increase of my misery.
Ye see my casting down, and are afraid: when you come near to me, and perceive my great and manifold calamities, you stand as it were at a distance; you are shy of me, and afraid for yourselves, either lest my sores or breath should infect you; or lest some further plagues-should come upon me, wherein yourselves for my sake, or because you are in my company, should be involved; or lest I should be burdensome to you, and need and call for your charitable contribution to support myself and the small remainders of my poor family, or for your helping hand to assist and save me from mine enemies, who may possibly fall upon me in this place, as the Chaldeans and Sabeans did upon my servants and cattle elsewhere; which is implied in the next verses. So far are you from being true friends and comforts to me, as you would seem to be.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
21. As the dried-up brook is tothe caravan, so are ye to me, namely, a nothing; ye might as well notbe in existence [UMBREIT].The Margin “like to them,” or “to it”(namely, the waters of the brook), is not so good a reading.
ye see, and are afraidYeare struck aghast at the sight of my misery, and ye lose presence ofmind. Job puts this mild construction on their failing to relieve himwith affectionate consolation.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
For now ye are nothing,…. Once they seemed to be something to him; he thought them men wise, good, and religious, kind, bountiful, and tenderhearted; but now he found them otherwise, they were nothing to him as friends or as comforters in his distress; the “Cetib”, or Scripture, is, as we read, and is followed by many; but the marginal reading is, “now ye are to it” a; that is, ye are like to it, the brook whose waters he had been describing; so Jarchi interprets it; Mr. Broughton very agreeably takes in both, “so now ye are become like that, even nothing”; as that deceitful brook is no more, nor of any use to travellers fainting through thirst; so ye are like that, of no use and advantage to me in my affliction:
ye see [my] casting down; from a state of prosperity to a state of adversity; from a pinnacle of honour, from being the greatest man in the east, a civil magistrate, and the head of a flourishing family, to the lowest degree of disgrace and dishonour; from wealth and riches to want and poverty; as well as saw the inward dejection of his mind, through the poisoned arrows of the Almighty within him:
and ye are afraid; of the righteous judgments of God, taking these calamities to be such, and fearing the same or the like should fall on them, should they keep him company; or however should they patronize and defend him; and afraid also of being too near him, lest his breath, and the smell of him, should be infectious, and they should catch a distemper from him; or lest he should be expensive and troublesome to them.
a “certe nunc fuistis illi”, Bolducius; so Michaelis; “certe nunc estis similes illi”, Pagninus, Vatablus, Mercerus.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
21 For now ye are become nothing;
You see misfortune, and are affrighted.
22 Have I then said, Give unto me,
And give a present for me from your substance,
23 And deliver me from the enemy’s hand,
And redeem me from the hand of the tyrant?
In Job 6:21, the reading wavers between and , with the Keri ; but , which is consequently the lectio recepta , gives no suitable meaning, only in a slight degree appropriate, as this: ye are become it, i.e., such a mountain brook; for is not to be translated, with Stickel and others, estis , but facti estis . The Targum, however, translates after the Chethib: ye are become as though ye had never been, i.e., nothingness. Now, since , Aramaic , can (as Dan 4:32 shows) be used as a substantive (a not = a null), and the thought: ye are become nothing, your friendship proves itself equal to null, suits the imagery just used, we decide in favour of the Chethib; then in the figure the corresponds most to this, and is also, therefore, not to be explained away. The lxx, Syr., Vulg., translate instead of : ye are become it (such deceitful brooks) to me. Ewald proposes to read (comp. the explanation, Ges. 137, rem. 3), – a conjecture which puts aside all difficulty; but the sentence with commends itself as being bolder and more expressive. All the rest explains itself. It is remarkable that in Job 6:21 the reading is also found, instead of : ye dreaded misfortune, and ye were then affrighted. is here, as an exception, properispomenon, according to Ges. 29, 3. , as Pro 5:10; Lev 26:20, what one has obtained by putting forth one’s strength, syn. , outward strength.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
(21) For now ye are nothing.Surely now ye are become like it i.e., that wady; or, according to another reading followed in the text of the Authorised Version, Ye have become nothing: ye have seen an object of terror, and are terrified: ye have seen my broken-down condition, and are dismayed at it.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
Third long strophe A FURTHER CONFIRMATION OF THE FALSENESS OF HIS FRIENDS, Job 6:21-30.
First strophe Job proceeds to apply the preceding illustration, Job 6:21-23.
21. Ye are nothing Like the streams the perishing host looked for.
My casting down Fearful state, (Furst,) or terror. Job was fearful to behold. The disposition of the three friends is like that of the priest and Levite they look on and lend no succour. The original has a figure of beauty a paronomasia, ( ) that cannot be translated.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Job 6:21 For now ye are nothing; ye see [my] casting down, and are afraid.
Ver. 21. For now ye are nothing ] i.e. To me nothing worth; I have no more joy of you than if you were not at all; ye are not unlike him who said to his friend, I am all yours, except body and goods; ye are not so much as friends at a sneeze, who will come out with a God bless you; or as those great benefactors in St James, Jas 2:15-16 , that were free of their mouth mercy; ye are mere mutes and ciphers, nullities, as to me just nothing; that is, ye are no such thing as I expected. And here Job brings the foregoing similitude home to his friends by close application. And according to the Hebrew margin called keri, it may be rendered, Fuistis ei similes, sc. torrenti; ye are like to it, that is, to the brook before mentioned; ye fail me as much as it did the thirsty passengers (Drus.).
For ye see my casting down, and are afraid
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
ye are nothing: or, ye are like to them, Heb. to it, Job 6:15, Job 13:4, Psa 62:9, Isa 2:22, Jer 17:5, Jer 17:6
nothing: Heb. not
ye see: Job 2:11-13, Psa 38:11, Pro 19:7, Jer 51:9, Mat 26:31, Mat 26:56, 2Ti 4:16, Rev 18:9, Rev 18:10, Rev 18:17, Rev 18:18
Reciprocal: Job 19:13 – estranged Psa 31:11 – a fear Pro 14:20 – poor Pro 27:10 – neither
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Job 6:21. For now ye are nothing, &c. Just such are you, who, seeing my calamity, afford me no comfort, and seem afraid lest I should want something of you. Thus Job very properly applies the preceding most beautiful description of the torrents in the hot climates, to his three friends who thus disappointed his expectations. Indeed, it is a very fine image of pretended friends in adversity. When their help is most wanted and coveted, they are too apt to fail the expectations of those that trusted in them. They may properly enough be said to be either frozen or melted away by adversity. All their warm professions are congealed, as it were, when adverse circumstances have laid hold on their friends, and their friendship is quite dissolved and melted away. Ye see my casting down, and are afraid You are shy of me, and afraid for yourselves, lest some further plague should come upon me, wherein you, for my sake, should be involved; or, lest I should be burdensome to you. Therefore you are to me as if you had never come; you are nothing to me, for I have no help or comfort from you.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
6:21 For now ye are {m} nothing; ye see [my] casting down, and are afraid.
(m) That is, like this brook which deceives them who think to have water there in their need, as I looked for consolation from you.