Job 6:20

Job has just poured out his grief and his longing to die (Job 6:1–13). He is answering the first speech of Eliphaz (Job 4–5), who held that suffering like Job’s must come from sin and claimed that the innocent do not perish (Job 4:7). Now, in a reply that runs through two whole chapters (Job 6–7), Job turns to the friends themselves.

“To him that is afflicted pity should be shewed from his friend.” The word for afflicted, mâç, means fainting, and figuratively one who is past consoling. The word for friend, rêaʻ, covers anyone from a neighbour to a close companion. Pity is cheçed, kindness or favour, a word that elsewhere often carries the sense of loyal, steadfast love. Job is asking for kindness that stays with a friend in trouble, the kind Proverbs describes: “A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity” (Proverbs 17:17). In Job’s world, friendship carried real duties of loyalty and help, and a friend was expected to stand by a man in distress with comfort and practical support.

“But he forsaketh the fear of the Almighty.” The verb ʻâzab means to loosen, let go, leave or forsake. Fear is yirʼâh, which in moral use means reverence, and the Almighty is Shadday, a title of God whose exact meaning is uncertain, though it may mean “the All-Sufficient One”. Job’s charge is that a friend who keeps back kindness from the afflicted has let go of his reverence for God. In the wisdom books the fear of God is where wisdom and right living begin: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge” (Proverbs 1:7). That reverence shows itself in how we treat people in trouble, which is why Micah joins doing justly and loving mercy with walking humbly with God (Micah 6:8), and why Jesus says that what is done for the least of his brethren is done for him (Matthew 25:40). There is a bitter irony in Job’s words. The men who have come to speak for God’s righteousness are failing in the plainest part of it.

“My brethren have dealt deceitfully as a brook.” Job calls his friends his brethren, ʼâch, a word used for kin by birth and widely for close companions. The closeness of the word is what makes the hurt so sharp. These men had come and sat with him in silence for seven days and nights (Job 2:11–13), and when they finally spoke, their words turned to accusation.

The verb for dealt deceitfully, bâgad, first means to cover, as with a garment, and so to act covertly and to deal treacherously. It is the language of broken trust. Job compares his friends to a brook, nachal, a stream, torrent or wadi, or the valley it runs through. Some such streams flow all year and others only in the wet season, and verses 16 and 17 show that Job has the second kind in mind. The same word comes back in the next line, “as the stream of brooks they pass away”. Stream is ʼâphîyq, a channel or the bed of a stream, and pass away is ʻâbar, to cross over, a verb used for every kind of passing. Here it is water flowing off and gone.

“Which are blackish by reason of the ice, and wherein the snow is hid.” In winter these streams run dark and full. The verb qâdar means to be ashy or dark-coloured, and by implication to mourn, as mourners did in dark sackcloth. The streams may look dark from silt, from the depth of the cold water, or from their sheer volume, and they look strong and dependable. The ice, qerach, is a word also used for hail and frost, and the snow is sheleg. The snow is hid in them: ʻâlam means to veil from sight, and the form used here means to be hidden. Snow melting from the high ground feeds the flood and disappears into it, so the stream’s fullness rests on a store that will run out.

“What time they wax warm, they vanish: when it is hot, they are consumed out of their place.” The verb behind “wax warm”, zârab, means to flow away, and “vanish”, tsâmath, means to be cut off or destroyed. Heat is chôm. “Consumed”, dâʻak, means to be extinguished or put out, and figuratively to dry up. Their place, mâqôwm, is the spot where they stood, so the water is gone from the very bed it filled. The heat of summer is exactly when water is needed most, and that is when these streams give out. Job’s friends failed him in the same way, when his trouble was at its hottest.

Job follows the travellers who relied on those streams. “The paths of their way are turned aside.” Paths is ʼôrach, a well-trodden road, and also a caravan, the word the KJV renders “troops” in the next verse. Way is derek, a road, and figuratively a course of life. The verb lâphath means to bend, and so to turn aside. Caravans planned their routes around water, and these turn off the road to reach the streams they remember. “They go to nothing”: the verb ʻâlâh most often means to go up, and nothing is tôhûw, a desolation, a waste or desert, and figuratively a worthless thing. They climb into an empty waste. “And perish”: ʼâbad properly means to wander away and lose oneself, and by implication to perish. Lost in the desert without water, they die.

“The troops of Tema looked, the companies of Sheba waited for them.” Tema, Têymâʼ, bears the name of a son of Ishmael and the region he settled. It was an oasis and caravan stop on the trade routes of Arabia, and it is the modern Tayma in Saudi Arabia. Sheba, Shᵉbâʼ, is the name of early founders of tribes and of a district, home of the Sabeans. It was a wealthy trading kingdom, probably in modern Yemen, whose queen came to Solomon to hear his wisdom (1 Kings 10:1). These were great merchant caravans, rich and well supplied, and even they depended on the water. Companies is hălîykâh, a walking, and so a procession or caravan. Looked is nâbaṭ, to look or gaze, and waited is qâvâh, to wait for, look for, hope for. “Them” is the streams, and the next verse shows how that waiting ended.

“They were confounded because they had hoped; they came thither, and were ashamed.” Confounded is bûwsh, which properly means to grow pale, and so to be ashamed or disappointed. Hoped is bâṭach, properly to hurry to a place of refuge, and figuratively to trust and be confident. Their shame matched their trust, for the more they had relied on the streams, the deeper the blow when they arrived. “They came thither” uses bôwʼ, the ordinary verb to come, and stresses the journey they had made on the strength of that hope. Ashamed is châphêr, to blush, and so to be ashamed. Set side by side, the face that goes pale and the face that reddens give a full picture of hope put to shame. Scripture sets this beside a hope that will never end that way: “hope maketh not ashamed” (Romans 5:5), and “Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed” (Romans 10:11).

Now Job applies the picture. “For now ye are nothing.” To him, in his need, his friends have become what the dry bed was to the caravans: a place he came to with hope and found empty. “Ye see my casting down, and are afraid.” See is râʼâh, the everyday word for seeing, and it reminds them that his ruin is in front of their eyes, his losses and his sickness alike. Casting down is chăthath, dismay, and here it is the ruin that dismays all who look at it. Afraid is yârêʼ, to fear, the verb that in moral use means to revere. These men are afraid of the sight of Job. They may be uneasy at misery so raw, eager to keep their distance from what they take to be God’s judgment, or anxious that the same could happen to them. Whatever the cause, their fear has swallowed their compassion. A psalmist knew the same grief when he looked for some to take pity and found none (Psalm 69:20). God’s people are told to weep with them that weep (Romans 12:15) and to bear one another’s burdens (Galatians 6:2), which is exactly what Job’s friends drew back from.

“Did I say, Bring unto me? or, Give a reward for me of your substance? Or, Deliver me from the enemy’s hand? or, Redeem me from the hand of the mighty?” Job asks four questions, and each names a costly favour. Say is ʼâmar, the ordinary verb for saying. Bring is yâhab, to give. Give a reward is shâchad, to make a gift, often a bribe or a payment for hire. Substance is kôach, a word that usually means strength or power, and here it stands for a man’s means. Deliver is mâlaṭ, properly to be smooth and so to slip away and escape, and in the form used here to let escape or rescue. The enemy, tsar, is most often an adversary, from a root meaning narrow or cramped, which also gives the sense of distress. Hand is yâd, the open hand that stands for power. Redeem is pâdâh, to ransom and set free, and the mighty, ʻârîyts, is a powerful, tyrannical or violent man. In a world of raiding parties and oppressive rulers, paying a ransom or rescuing a captive was a real and heavy demand to make of a friend.

Job’s picture of the failing stream belongs beside Scripture’s warnings about where our trust rests. Jeremiah sets the man who trusts in man, like a bush in the desert, against the man who trusts in the LORD, like a tree planted by the waters (Jeremiah 17:5–8). The psalms warn against putting trust in princes and bless the man whose help is the God of Jacob (Psalm 146:3–5), say that it is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man (Psalm 118:8–9), and confess that vain is the help of man (Psalm 60:11). “Confidence in an unfaithful man in time of trouble is like a broken tooth, and a foot out of joint” (Proverbs 25:19). We are to trust in the LORD with all our heart (Proverbs 3:5–6), for he is “our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble” (Psalm 46:1), his compassions fail not and are new every morning (Lamentations 3:22–23), and his word stands for ever (Isaiah 40:8).

Friendship remains God’s gift, and Job is right to long for it. He was not alone in missing it. Later he calls these same men “miserable comforters” (Job 16:2), and Paul writes that at his first defence all men forsook him, but the Lord stood with him and strengthened him (2 Timothy 4:16–17).

Jesus knew the desertion Job describes. Judas betrayed him with a kiss (Matthew 26:47–50), Peter denied him three times (Matthew 26:69–75), and on the cross he cried out as one forsaken (Matthew 27:46), so that his people would hear God say, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee” (Hebrews 13:5). He is the friend that sticketh closer than a brother (Proverbs 18:24), and he showed it: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). He is the good shepherd who gives his life for the sheep (John 10:11), and he tells his disciples to love one another as he has loved them (John 13:34).

Where the winter stream fails, Christ gives living water, and whoever drinks it will never thirst (John 4:10–14). He cried, “If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink” (John 7:37–38), and he is the bread of life (John 6:35). Those who hope in him are never put to shame like the caravans at the dry bed. He endured the cross and despised its shame (Hebrews 12:2), and through his resurrection God has given us a lively hope and an inheritance that fadeth not away (1 Peter 1:3–4).

He also gives the pity that Job’s friends withheld. He was moved with compassion for the crowds (Matthew 9:36), he wept at the grave of Lazarus (John 11:35), and he was “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” who bore our griefs and carried our sorrows (Isaiah 53:3–4). He made himself of no reputation and became obedient unto death (Philippians 2:7–8), so that we have a high priest touched with the feeling of our infirmities, “in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). Job’s friends looked on his ruin and were afraid, while Christ came near, and his perfect love casteth out fear (1 John 4:18). He calls the weary and heavy laden to come to him for rest (Matthew 11:28–30), and the God of all comfort comforts us so that we can comfort others (2 Corinthians 1:4).

Job asked no friend to redeem him from the hand of the mighty, and Christ has done far more. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). He came to give his life a ransom for many (Mark 10:45), to redeem us from all iniquity (Titus 2:14), and to deliver us from the power of darkness (Colossians 1:13). By his death he destroyed him that had the power of death and set free those held in fear of it (Hebrews 2:14–15). He knew no sin, yet God made him to be sin for us (2 Corinthians 5:21). It pleased the LORD to bruise him (Isaiah 53:10), and in Gethsemane he prayed, “not my will, but thine, be done” (Luke 22:42). He is the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever (Hebrews 13:8), with us alway, even unto the end of the world (Matthew 28:20). He abideth faithful even when we are faithless (2 Timothy 2:13), and all the promises of God are yea and Amen in him (2 Corinthians 1:20).

This passage gives us Job’s honest grief in God’s own word. Scripture lets a suffering man say plainly that his friends have failed him, and it keeps his words for us. It also ties the way we treat the afflicted to the way we fear God, so that kindness to a fainting friend is part of reverence for the Almighty. The friend Job longed for is the friend who loves at all times and is born for adversity. When human help dries up like a summer stream, God remains a very present help in trouble, and in Christ we have a friend who came near to our ruin, a Redeemer who paid the ransom, and water that lasts through the hottest day.