Commentary - Job 6:1-4

Bird's-eye view

In this passage, Job begins his formal reply to the counsel of Eliphaz. Having endured a sermon filled with pious generalities and thinly veiled accusations, Job does not apologize for his grief but rather defends it. His central argument is that his words, however rash they may seem, are a direct and proportional consequence of his suffering, which is immeasurable. He wishes his agony could be placed on a set of scales, confident that it would outweigh all the sand of the seas. Crucially, Job attributes this overwhelming affliction directly to God. He is not a victim of fate or random chance; he is the target of the Almighty's poisoned arrows and is besieged by the organized terrors of God. This is not a lapse in faith but a profound and honest lament from a man who refuses to abandon his theological convictions, even when those convictions mean that God Himself is his adversary.

Job is rejecting the simplistic cause-and-effect theology of his friends. They see suffering and deduce sin. Job experiences suffering and deduces a profound and terrifying mystery in the character of God. He is arguing for the sheer weight and gravity of his experience, a gravity his friends have failed to appreciate. This is the cry of a man who knows God is sovereign, and therefore knows exactly where to lay the responsibility for his condition.

Outline

Context In Job

This section marks the beginning of the first cycle of dialogues between Job and his three friends. Eliphaz the Temanite has just concluded his first speech (Job 4-5), in which he blended observations about the universal sinfulness of man with a gentle insinuation that Job's suffering must be a result of some hidden iniquity. He counseled Job to appeal to God and accept his chastisement. Job's response in chapter 6 is a direct rebuttal to the inadequacy of Eliphaz's counsel. Eliphaz has offered the equivalent of a band-aid for a gaping wound. Job is now going to describe, in graphic detail, the nature of that wound. He is shifting the conversation away from the tidy theological boxes of his friends and into the raw, chaotic reality of his experience under the sovereign hand of a God who has, for all appearances, become his enemy.

Key Issues

The Weight of a Wounded Spirit

Eliphaz has just finished his sermon, a masterpiece of what we might call sanctimonious malpractice. He has diagnosed Job from a distance, applying general truths to a specific situation without ever taking the measure of the man's particular agony. He has offered counsel that is theologically correct in the abstract but pastorally cruel in the concrete. Now Job answers, and his words are not the soft reply that turns away wrath. They are the raw cry of a man who refuses to let his experience be minimized or explained away by cheap grace and easy answers.

Verse by Verse Commentary

1 Then Job answered and said,

This simple narrative frame is important. The debate is now truly joined. Job has listened silently to Eliphaz. Now he speaks, not to God this time, but to his would-be comforter. What follows is a direct response to the counsel he has just received.

2 “Oh that my vexation were actually weighed And laid in the balances together with my destruction!

Job begins with a desperate wish, an "Oh that." He wants his grief to be handled with objectivity. The words vexation and destruction (or calamity) encompass the full scope of his misery, both the internal anguish and the external ruin. He appeals to the image of a great scale, a tool of commerce and justice. He is saying, "Stop philosophizing and start measuring. Let's treat this situation with the seriousness it deserves." Eliphaz has come with his opinions; Job wants to deal in objective weight. He is convinced that if his friends could truly grasp the sheer mass of his suffering, their whole perspective would change.

3 For then it would be heavier than the sand of the seas; Therefore my words have been rash.

Here is the heart of his defense. He states the result of the weighing: his grief would be heavier than the sand of the seas, a classic biblical metaphor for something innumerable, immeasurable. And then comes the crucial "Therefore." He connects the immeasurable cause to the observable effect. "Therefore my words have been rash." He is not apologizing for his words; he is explaining them. He is arguing that his wild, desperate speech is not a sign of his sin, but rather a fitting and proportional response to the crushing weight he is under. A man whose foot is caught in a bear trap is allowed to scream. Job is saying that his screams are commensurate with his agony. If you think my words are wild, it is only because you have no idea how heavy this burden is.

4 For the arrows of the Almighty are within me, Their poison my spirit drinks; The horrors of God are arranged against me.

Job now identifies the ultimate source of this immeasurable weight. This is not bad luck. This is not the work of the Sabeans and Chaldeans alone. This is not even, in his immediate consciousness, the work of Satan. This is the work of Shaddai, the Almighty. Job's theology is impeccably orthodox and terrifyingly personal. He uses three devastating metaphors to describe God's assault. First, God is a divine archer, and His arrows have found their mark. They are "within me," indicating a deep, penetrating wound. Second, these are not clean arrows; they are tipped with poison, and his very spirit, his innermost being, is forced to drink this venom. This is a spiritual, soul-crushing attack. The affliction is not just on his skin, but in his spirit. Third, this is not a random or chaotic attack. The "horrors of God" are set in battle array against him. He is a lone soldier facing a disciplined, organized, and overwhelming divine army. God is not just chastising him; He is waging total war against him. This is the reality that Eliphaz's tidy theology cannot contain.

Application

There are at least two profound applications we must draw from this raw cry. The first has to do with how we minister to those who suffer. The sin of Eliphaz is the sin of offering easy answers from a safe distance. He had his theological system, and he tried to fit Job's experience into it. But Job's grief was heavier than the sand of the seas, and it broke the system. We are called to weep with those who weep, which means we must first be willing to listen to the weight of their sorrow without rushing to correct their "rash" words. True pastoral care begins not with a sermon, but with a willingness to sit in the ashes.

The second and greater application is to see how Job's suffering points us to the cross. Job cried out that the arrows of the Almighty were within him. He felt the full, concentrated hostility of a holy God. But this was just a shadow. On the cross, the Lord Jesus Christ did not just feel a few arrows; He absorbed the entire quiver. He did not just drink the poison; He drank the full cup of God's undiluted wrath against our sin. The horrors of God were not just arranged against Him; they crushed Him. Job's words were rash because his suffering was immense. Christ's cry of dereliction, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" was the only sane and rational thing to be said in that moment. Because Job's redeemer lives, we know that God's arrows are not the final word for His people. In Christ, God takes the poison of His own wrath into Himself, so that for us, even the heaviest of afflictions are transformed from a damning poison into a purifying medicine.