Commentary - Job 6:8-13

Bird's-eye view

In this passage, Job responds to the tidy, shallow theology of his friend Eliphaz. Having wished his grief could be weighed on a cosmic scale, Job now descends into the depths of his despair, expressing a raw and honest desire for death. This is not a Stoic resignation, but a passionate plea. He begs God to finish the work of destruction He has apparently started. Yet, even in this blackest of moments, a flicker of profound faith remains. Job's one comfort, his joy even in unsparing pain, is that he has not denied or hidden the words of the Holy One. His suffering is so immense that he sees no natural strength within himself to endure it. He is asking a fundamental question: When all earthly hope is gone, and your body and circumstances have completely failed you, what is left? For Job, the only thing left is the integrity of his relationship with God, measured by his faithfulness to God's revealed word. This passage is a stark portrait of a man crushed by the sovereign hand of God, who nevertheless refuses to let go of the only thing that matters.

This is not the language of a man giving up on God, but rather of a man who has given up on everything else. His hope is not in his circumstances, his health, or his friends' counsel. His hope is now a stark and naked thing, a hope for God to act, even if that action is the final blow. He is wrestling with the hard reality that the same God who gives is the God who takes away, and he is asking for the taking to be complete. But underneath it all is a profound testimony: a man can lose everything, want to die, and still find his last standing comfort in his fealty to the words of God.

Outline

Context In Job

Job 6 is Job's first response to one of his friends, in this case, Eliphaz the Temanite. Eliphaz has just delivered a speech (Job 4-5) that is a mixture of profound spiritual truth and tragically misapplied counsel. He has essentially argued that Job's suffering must be the result of some hidden sin, because God is just and does not punish the innocent. Eliphaz's theology is neat, orderly, and, in this situation, dead wrong. Job is not responding to a straw man; he is responding to the best wisdom the world had to offer. His answer is not a theological treatise but a raw cry from the ash heap. He begins by stating that his grief is heavier than all the sand of the sea (Job 6:2-3) because the arrows of the Almighty are stuck in him (Job 6:4). The passage we are examining is the heart of this cry, where Job moves from describing his pain to petitioning God for an end to it.

Key Issues

The Faith of a Man Who Wants to Die

We modern, comfortable Christians often don't know what to do with passages like this. We are tempted to either psychologize Job's condition or rush past his dark words to find a more "positive" message. But we must not do that. The Holy Spirit has included this raw prayer in the canon of Scripture for a reason. It teaches us that faith is not a perpetual state of chipper optimism. There are moments in the life of a believer, when under the immense pressure of God's sovereign hand, the only coherent prayer is a plea for the end. This is not unbelief. Unbelief curses God and dies. Faith, even at its extremity, still directs its plea to God. Job is not talking about God behind His back; he is speaking directly to Him. He longs for death, but he wants it from God's hand. This is a crucial distinction. He is not seeking to escape God's presence, but rather to have his suffering brought to its conclusion by the only one who has the authority to do so. This is the dark side of faith, the side that wrestles with God in the valley of the shadow, and it is a faith that God honors.

Verse by Verse Commentary

8 “Oh that my request might come to pass, And that God would grant my hope!

Job opens with a passionate wish. The words are those of a man at the end of his rope. He has a "request," a "hope." And what is this hope that he wants God to grant? In our therapeutic age, we would assume he is hoping for healing, for restoration, for a light at the end of the tunnel. But Job's hope is far starker than that. He is not asking for his circumstances to be reversed. He is asking for them to be concluded. This is a prayer, directed to God, for something that God alone can give. He still recognizes God as the grantor of requests, the fulfiller of hopes, even when the hope is for the termination of his own life.

9 Would that God were willing to crush me, That He would release His hand and cut me off!

Here is the shocking content of his hope. He wishes that God would be "willing to crush me." The imagery is violent and total. He feels the weight of God's hand upon him, and he begs for that hand not to be lifted, but to come down with finality. He wants God to "release His hand," not in the sense of letting him go, but in the sense of unleashing its full power to "cut me off." The metaphor is likely that of a weaver cutting a finished thread from the loom. Job sees his life as a tapestry of suffering, and he is asking the divine weaver to make the final cut. He rightly understands that his life and death are in God's hands. He is not contemplating taking matters into his own hands. His theology is orthodox even in his agony: God is the one who determines the number of our days.

10 But it is still my comfort, And I rejoice in unsparing pain, That I have not at all hidden away the words of the Holy One.

This is the pivot point of the entire passage, and one of the most profound statements in the book. In the midst of his death wish, Job identifies his one remaining "comfort." What is it? Not the memory of past blessings, not the hope of future relief, but this: "I have not at all hidden away the words of the Holy One." The verb can also mean to deny or conceal. Despite everything, Job knows that he has held fast to God's revelation. His conscience before God is clear on this central point. This is why he can "rejoice in unsparing pain." This is not masochism. It is the joy of a clear conscience in the face of a bewildering providence. His friends will accuse him of hidden sin, but Job knows his own heart. He has treasured God's word. This is the bedrock that the waves of affliction cannot wash away. When everything else is gone, this remains.

11 What is my strength, that I should wait? And what is my end, that I should endure?

Job now turns to a self-assessment. He asks two rhetorical questions. First, "What is my strength, that I should wait?" He is looking inward for a resource, a reserve of power that would enable him to hold on, to hope for a better future. And he finds nothing. His human strength is completely spent. He has no basis for patience within himself. Second, he asks, "what is my end, that I should endure?" What is the goal, the purpose, the future prospect that would make all this suffering worthwhile? From his vantage point on the ash heap, he sees no earthly future. There is no "end" in sight that would justify prolonging the agony. He is making a rational calculation based on his observations, and the conclusion is that continued existence is pointless.

12 Is my strength the strength of stones, Or is my flesh bronze?

He continues the theme of his human frailty. He is not a rock. His body is not made of metal. He is flesh and blood, and he has reached his breaking point. This is a protest against any theology that demands of a man more than he can bear. Eliphaz and the others seem to think Job should just be able to buck up and take it. Job's response is that he is a man, not an inanimate object. His capacity for pain has been exceeded. This is an important reminder that while our ultimate hope is in God, our physical and emotional frames are finite. God knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust (Psalm 103:14).

13 Is it that there is no help within me, And that the success of sound wisdom is driven from me?

Job concludes his lament with a final assessment of his utter helplessness. He looks inside himself: "there is no help within me." He has no internal resources left. Then he looks for what the Old Testament would call wisdom or practical success (tushiyyah). It has been "driven from me." Everything that makes for a successful, functioning life has been stripped away. He is bankrupt in body, in spirit, and in prospects. He is left with nothing but the raw, naked fact of his suffering and his one comfort: his faithfulness to the words of the Holy One. It is from this position of absolute zero that God will eventually begin to speak and to work.

Application

The book of Job, and this passage in particular, is a great gift to the church because it gives us permission to be honest in our afflictions. God is not a celestial therapist who is shocked by our raw emotions. He is a sovereign Father who can handle our questions, our grief, and even our desire for it all to be over. Job teaches us that true piety is not pretending we are made of stone or bronze. True piety is bringing our broken, fleshy, dust-like selves to God and telling Him the truth.

But the central application is found in verse 10. What is your final comfort? When your health is gone, your money is gone, your friends misunderstand you, and God Himself seems to be your enemy, what do you have left? Job's answer is his integrity before the Word of God. Have you treasured the words of the Holy One? Have you refused to deny them, even when they don't seem to "work" for you? Our ultimate comfort cannot be in our circumstances, which are fleeting. It must be in the character of God and our relationship to Him, mediated through His Word. Job's suffering was unique, but his comfort is available to all of us.

And of course, we must read Job through the lens of the cross. Job longed for a redeemer, and we know His name. Jesus Christ is the ultimate righteous sufferer who was crushed by God on our behalf. He felt the full, unsparing pain of God's wrath. And why? So that we, who have so often hidden away and denied the words of the Holy One, could be forgiven. Our conscience can be truly clear, not because of our perfect obedience like Job, but because of Christ's perfect obedience for us. When we are in the depths, our final comfort is not just that we have kept the Word, but that the Word became flesh and kept us.