Job 6:14-23 meaning

In Job 6:14-23, Job says that true friends ought to show kindness and share truth rather than make false accusations. He has already rejected Eliphaz’s “transactional” logic—treating God like a sort of idol, where suffering must always be traced back to personal guilt and prosperity is always a result of proper appeasement.

Job’s words also continue to fit the book’s larger unseen drama. The reader knows Job’s suffering is not a transactional punishment, while Job’s friends do not. That gap is what makes their counsel distressing to Job. They are pushing Job to make confessions that do not match reality. Job pushes back, initially asking for kindness, saying For the despairing man there should be kindness from his friend (v.14).

The Hebrew word translated kindness is also rendered “mercy,” “devotion,” and “lovingkindness.” The idea is to do something that seeks the best for someone else, particularly someone in need. Job calls Eliphaz his friend, which is apparent given that he sat for seven days in silence with Job prior to the commencement of this dialogue (Job 2:13). Job’s accusation is that Eliphaz’s speech is not taking into account that he is despairing.

Job then reveals why this kindness matters so much: So that he does not forsake the fear of the Almighty (v.14). We can observe that when someone is despairing they are vulnerable—not only emotionally, but spiritually. The fear of the Almighty is Job’s reverent trust in God’s greatness and authority. We saw this on display when Job’s response to losing all his children and possessions was to worship (Job 1:20-21).

Eliphaz and his two friends’ view of God is undermining the reality that God is Almighty. Their view holds that He is transactional, and can be manipulated for our benefit. God obviously does not like this characterization, and calls their errant depiction of Him “folly” in Job 42:8. Job recognizes that God has His own reasons for doing what He does, and does not answer to anyone (Job 2:10).

We will see later that Job also has an incorrect view of God in that he believes God is sufficiently disconnected to be unaware of Job’s plight. He believes that if he could have an in-person interview that God would realize the injustice being done to Job and alter his fortunes (Job 23:6-7). God will straighten out this misunderstanding in chapters 38-41. However, God still says of Job that he spoke “what is right” about Him (Job 42:7).

This would infer the overriding importance of fearing God, which is consistent with scripture’s assertion that the fear of the Lord is the very beginning of both knowledge and wisdom (Proverbs 1:7, 9:10). That Job’s words feared Him was to speak rightly. We can deduce through this story that Job’s lack of knowing God was something the Almighty was happy to lead Job to come to understand.

Job calls God “the Holy One” in Job 6:10 and the Almighty here in verse 14. He recognizes God’s authority to do whatever He chooses. Job recognizes that he is a creature who should bow before Him regardless of his circumstances (Job 1:20, 2:10). In this he speaks correctly of God. But the view of God now being advanced by his friends is one Job views as a temptation to stop appropriately fearing God.

Job is saying that Eliphaz’s type of counsel could push a suffering person toward spiritual collapse. We will see in chapters 38-41 that God will also speak with Job sternly. However, in God’s case His testimony is true. Eliphaz’s assertion that Job deserves his plight is not true, and the implications he makes about God being transactional, that His actions are determined by ours, is manifestly untrue, as God adamantly states in Job 42:7.

The New Testament tells believers to carry one another’s burdens (Galatians 6:2) and to weep with those who weep (Romans 12:15). It also encourages believers to turn others away from sin (James 5:19-20). But it also tells believers not to deal with the sins of others until we have dealt with our own (Matthew 7:3-5).

It does seem that Eliphaz and his two friends believe they are helping Job, but their view of God is wrong, so their advice is off base. They will end up needing to ask Job to intervene on their behalf to avoid God dealing with their folly as they have said (falsely) that He was dealing with Job (Job 42:8-9).

Job now states that his friends have spoken falsely: My brothers have acted deceitfully like a wadi, Like the torrents of wadis which vanish (v.15).

By calling them brothers, Job embraces them as close friends. These are not strangers; they are companions who came with the intent to support Job (Job 2:13). Yet Job says that in their intended support they have acted deceitfully. The Hebrew word translated as have acted deceitfully can also be rendered as “have acted treacherously.”

Job next describes what he means by acted deceitfully by describing a caravan that is disappointed when it arrives at a dry riverbed—a wadi. The travelers in a caravan expect a refreshing stream of water, but when they arrive they find nothing but dust.

The wadi is treacherous for those who rely on it for water, just as Job’s friends have disappointed him when he expected them to provide him comfort. Job describes his brothers as having acted deceitfully like a wadi, Like the torrents of wadis which vanish, Which are turbid because of ice And into which the snow melts (vv. 15b-16).

The snow collects on the mountains, where some of it becomes ice. The snow and ice then melts as the seasons turn warm. During this season of runoff, the wadi becomes turbid with the volume of water runoff, a picture of a raging tide of water. But as the dry season persists, the wadis vanish. The riverbed turns dry. Travelers expecting to find water within them will find only disappointment (just as Job is expressing disappointment with his brothers).

Job describes next the dry state of the now-arid wadis: When they become waterless, they are silent, When it is hot, they vanish from their place (v.17). The very moment a traveler most needs water—when it is “hot”—is the moment these streams disappear. Job is saying that his friends have done something similar: when the crisis is most intense, their kindness has dried up, replaced by cold analysis and spiritual suspicion.

That phrase they are silent pictures a river without the sound of running water. It is simply a dry bed. Job now offers this dry and silent creek bed as a picture of Eliphaz’s critique; it is a picture of uselessness. Eliphaz claims Job deserves his suffering, asserting that God would never allow such harm to come to a righteous man. We know this is false, because of how God speaks of Job and the real reason Job has experienced tragedy and suffering; the story tells us that Job did not sin (Job 1:22) and spoke rightly of God (Job 42:7).

Job continues the travel imagery: The paths of their course wind along, They go up into nothing and perish (v.18). The streams’ channels twist and wander, but ultimately lead to emptiness. The water’s “course” looks like it is going somewhere, but it ends in nothing. This is presumably because the course of the river dries up. In that the wadi has no destination, it mirrors Eliphaz’s criticism, which Job infers also has no useful purpose.

Eliphaz is raging, like the wadi in its season. But his words go nowhere. They accomplish nothing. They will just evaporate and be gone. They are useless to Job.

Job makes the metaphor concrete with real travelers: The caravans of Tema looked, The travelers of Sheba hoped for them (v.19). Just as Job hoped for comfort, the travelers had hoped for water; both were disappointed. Tema was known as an oasis region and trading area in northern Arabia, associated in Scripture with Ishmael’s line (Genesis 25:15). Caravans crossing harsh terrain would plan their routes around known water sources. Sheba points to the wealthy trading peoples of southern Arabia—later famously connected with the Queen of Sheba who visited Solomon around the tenth century BC (1 Kings 10:1-13).

Whether Job is thinking of Sheba as a region, a people group, or the broader caravan world, the point is the same: travelers in a caravan depend on finding water along their route. Job next describes the severe disappointment the travelers experience when they come to the wadi and it is dry: They were disappointed for they had trusted, They came there and were confounded (v.20).

A key phrase is they had trusted. The travelers were not foolish; they were trusting what seemed like a legitimate source. Perhaps they were coming to the wadi at a time of year when the runoff ought to still fill the riverbed. But their trust is broken. The Hebrew word translated confounded is often translated as “ashamed.” It is used in 2 Kings 19:26 together with the word “dismayed.” The picture is that they feel shamed for trusting something they now recognize as untrustworthy. Their dismay shows the level of confidence they had prior to experiencing the treachery of the dry wadi.

In the same way, Job trusted his friends. He expected their companionship to be a refuge. Instead, he feels confounded, shamed to have held a hope in his brothers that did not stand. Rather than comfort, Job’s friends are adding suffering to his loss. His word picture paints a betrayal of expectation. Those he expected to have met him with understanding have instead dealt him scrutiny.

His description indicates that he feels abandoned and alone.

Job makes the application explicit: Indeed, you have now become such, You see a terror and are afraid (v.21). The phrase become such refers to the picture of the dry wadi. Job expected encouragement and comfort from his friends, like cool and refreshing river water from melted snow would be to travelers who have crossed the wilderness. Instead, his friends are a severe disappointment, like a caravan discovering the water source they counted on is dry.

Job attributes their reaction to being afraid. They have seen a terror, which is Job’s downfall. Perhaps the fear Job attributes to them is the fear that they might also befall such dire circumstance. So they rationalize; “This cannot happen to me, because I am righteous. This must have happened to Job because he did something.”

Job might be inferring that their words come from a place of self-protection. He had depended on them to minister to him. Instead, they are creating a rationalization that creates an illusion of protection for themselves. One of the great ironies of this story is that at the end God will call the stated positions of Eliphaz and his friends “folly, because you have not spoken of Me what is right, as My servant Job has” (Job 42:8).

Their fear caused them to create a word shield of accusation against Job, but God saw all that as “folly.” Eliphaz and his friends will have to humble themselves before Job to protect them from God’s wrath (Job 42:8-9).

Given that Eliphaz and his two friends believe righteousness produces safety from harm, then they may be terrified by the fact that righteous Job is suffering. It suggests suffering can strike the blameless, which means it could strike them too. Fear, then, becomes the engine of their harshness. Instead of moving toward Job with kindness, they pull back into self-protection. Their rationalization creates an illusion of control. And this is likely one of the key things about which God says they “have not spoken of Me what is right as My servant Job has” (Job 42:7). Human rationalizations are illusions; only God is in control of all that is (Colossians 1:17).

Job next asks a pair of rhetorical questions aimed at proving his innocence of Eliphaz’s accusation. In each case, Job is countering the idea that he has done something wrong. Eliphaz has maintained that Job must have done something to have deserved his plight (Job 4:7, 5:17). He has exhorted Job to repent, and has inferred that if Job repents God will restore (as though God is transactional and might be manipulated by human action).

Job now offers a number of rhetorical questions that anticipate an answer of “No”:

• “Have I said, ‘Give me something,’
• Or, ‘Offer a bribe for me from your wealth,’ (v. 22)
• Or, ‘Deliver me from the hand of the adversary,’
• Or, ‘Redeem me from the hand of the tyrants’? (v. 23).

Job has not asked them for anything (Give me something). He has not asked for charity to help him in his plight (Offer me a bribe from your wealth). He has not asked for them to gather up a band of troops and go avenge his losses against those who marauded him, as described in Job 1:15, 17 (Deliver me from the hand of the adversary,’ Or, ‘Redeem me from the hand of the tyrants’).

In the next section, Job will challenge them to “show me where I have erred” in defiance of his friend’s accusation of guilt. Throughout this dialogue, Job will maintain that he did nothing to deserve judgement, an assertion affirmed by God (Job 1:22, 42:7). Eliphaz and his two friends will maintain the opposite, and continue to assert that God shows His goodness by providing blessings to those who are righteous.

Their assertion is accurate in concept, but misunderstands that God’s ways are higher than our ways, and we cannot always discern His blessings from current circumstances (Romans 11:33-34). As we will see, God is in the process of providing Job the greatest blessing, which is to know Him. Jesus tells us that to know Him is to experience the fullness of life, “eternal life” (John 17:3). God is making sure that this man whom He so highly esteems does not miss out on one bit of opportunity to know Him by faith. In the next section, Job will continue his defense.