The Honesty of a Hungry Soul Text: Job 6:5-7
Introduction: When Piety Goes Bad
We come now to the raw heart of a man in agony. Job has been sitting on an ash heap, scraping his boils with a piece of pottery, having lost everything that made up his world. His ten children are dead, his wealth is gone, and his body is a wreck. And as if that were not enough, his friends have arrived. For seven days they sat with him in a commendable silence. But then they opened their mouths, and the trouble really began.
Eliphaz has just finished his first speech, a masterpiece of what we might call "wooden orthodoxy." He has suggested, with all the subtlety of a thrown brick, that Job must have some secret sin to deserve all this. "Who that was innocent ever perished?" he asks. It is the kind of tidy, systematic theology that works wonderfully well in a classroom but shatters like cheap pottery when it collides with the jagged edges of real human suffering. It is true, in a general sense, that sin brings ruin. The book of Proverbs is full of this. But Eliphaz is not applying a general principle; he is wielding it like a club against a man who is already on the ground.
Job's response in this chapter is not a polite theological disagreement. It is a howl of pain and righteous indignation. He is not complaining against God here so much as he is pushing back against the insipid, tasteless, and frankly cruel counsel of his friend. Job is arguing that his complaint is not groundless. He is not braying for no reason. His soul is starving, and his friends are offering him a meal of gravel. What we have in these verses is a lesson in the difference between true wisdom and pious platitudes. It is a lesson our modern, therapeutic, conflict-averse church desperately needs to learn.
The Text
Does the wild donkey bray over his grass,
Or does the ox low over his fodder?
Can something tasteless be eaten without salt,
Or is there any taste in the slime of a yolk?
My soul refuses to touch them;
They are like loathsome food to me.
(Job 6:5-7 LSB)
A Reasonable Complaint (v. 5)
Job begins with a defense of his right to complain, using an analogy from the animal kingdom.
"Does the wild donkey bray over his grass, Or does the ox low over his fodder?" (Job 6:5)
The logic is earthy and undeniable. A donkey with a mouthful of fresh grass is a quiet donkey. An ox contentedly chewing its cud is not making a racket. Animals make noise when they are hungry, when something is wrong. Their cries are an honest signal of a genuine need. Job is saying, "My groaning is not for nothing. I am not some pampered child throwing a tantrum because the universe will not bend to my whims. I am a starving animal, and the pasture is bare."
This is a direct rebuke to Eliphaz. Eliphaz has implied that Job's outburst is unseemly, a sign of impatience with God. Job counters that it is entirely natural. He is grounding his spiritual agony in the created order. God made donkeys to bray when they are hungry, and He made men to cry out when they are crushed. To demand that Job remain silent in his suffering is to demand that he be less than human. It is to demand a stoicism that the Bible never requires of the saints.
Think of the Psalms. They are filled with this kind of raw, honest lament. "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning?" (Psalm 22:1). Was the psalmist sinning? No, he was praying. He was being honest before God about his condition. Job is doing the same. He is arguing that his pain is real, and therefore his complaint is legitimate. A content animal is quiet. A suffering man groans. To deny this is to deny reality.
Insipid Counsel (v. 6)
Job now turns his attention from his own suffering to the "comfort" being offered by his friends. The metaphor shifts from the animal's hunger to the nature of the food itself.
"Can something tasteless be eaten without salt, Or is there any taste in the slime of a yolk?" (Job 6:6 LSB)
The "tasteless thing" here is the speech of Eliphaz. It is insipid. It is like eating the white of an egg, what the text calls "the slime of a yolk," without any salt to give it flavor. It might have the form of food, but it provides no nourishment, no satisfaction. It is bland, gooey, and unappetizing. This is a brilliant and scathing critique of bad theology.
Eliphaz's words were not technically heretical. He said many true things about God's justice and power. But his application was entirely wrong. He served up these theological truths without the salt of wisdom, compassion, or situational awareness. Salt does two things: it preserves and it gives flavor. Wise counsel preserves the soul from error and despair, and it makes hard truths palatable. Eliphaz's counsel did neither. It was truth unsalted, which is no better than error. It was technically correct and pastorally disastrous.
This is a perpetual temptation for the orthodox. We have the right ingredients, the right doctrines. But we can serve them up in a way that is utterly tasteless and unhelpful. We can offer a man dying of thirst a technically perfect diagram of the chemical composition of water. What he needs is a cup of cold water in Jesus' name. Job is starving for real comfort, for a word that tastes like something, and Eliphaz has given him the spiritual equivalent of egg whites. It is formless, flavorless, and utterly useless.
A Soul's Revulsion (v. 7)
The conclusion of this trilogy of metaphors is visceral and absolute. Job is not merely indifferent to this counsel; he is repulsed by it.
"My soul refuses to touch them; They are like loathsome food to me." (Job 6:7 LSB)
His very soul, his nephesh, his inner being, recoils from what Eliphaz has offered. It is not just bland food; it is "loathsome food," like bread with sickness in it. It is corrupt. It turns the stomach. This is strong language. Job is saying that his friend's pious-sounding advice is not just unhelpful, it is sickening. It adds to his affliction.
Why? Because it is dishonest. It refuses to grapple with the reality of Job's situation. Eliphaz is trying to force Job's experience into his neat theological grid, and in doing so, he is torturing the man. He is offering a false comfort, a "peace, peace" when there is no peace. And a godly soul, even in the depths of despair, has a kind of spiritual gag reflex to this sort of thing. It tastes like a lie.
Job's suffering is the main course of his life right now. He cannot ignore it. And his friends' words, which are supposed to be a comfort, have become a part of that loathsome meal. He is being force-fed a diet of affliction from God and sickening platitudes from men. His soul's refusal to "touch them" is a mark of spiritual integrity. He would rather starve than eat lies. He would rather be honest in his agony before God than pretend to be comforted by the shallow and cruel moralizing of his friends.
The Salt of the Covenant
So what is the takeaway for us? This passage is a profound warning against the sin of being "right woodenly." It is a call for salty speech, for wisdom in application. Our theology must be robust enough to handle the Jobs of this world, the saints who suffer inexplicably.
When a brother or sister is in the crucible, the last thing they need is a lecture on the thermal properties of fire. They do not need you to be the prosecuting attorney for God, trying to find the secret sin that "must" be there. What they need is the salt of the covenant. They need to be reminded of truths that have flavor and substance.
And what is that salt? It is the gospel. The answer to Job's suffering is not a tidy formula but a person. The answer is the Redeemer whom Job himself will confess later, the one who lives (Job 19:25). The answer is Jesus Christ, the ultimate righteous sufferer, who cried out in agony from the cross. He did not eat tasteless food; He drank the full cup of God's wrath, which was truly loathsome, so that we would not have to.
Christ understands Job's cry because His cry was deeper. He understands what it is to be served the counsel of fools and mockers. And He is the only one who can provide food that truly satisfies the starving soul. He is the Bread of Life. His words are not egg whites; they are spirit and they are life.
Therefore, let us learn from Job's friends what not to do. Let us not offer insipid platitudes to those in pain. Let us weep with those who weep. And let us offer them the only food that has any taste, the only truth that has any salt: the grace of God found in the crucified and risen Lord Jesus. He is the one who turns our braying into blessing, our groaning into glory, and our loathsome food into the feast of His presence.