Job rejects Eliphaz’s counsel and rebuts his main arguments. Job does not believe he is receiving mere divine discipline—his afflictions are sapping his life! Nor can he believe he will live to see a bright future—he has neither the endurance nor the time; the lifespan is simply not that long, and his, he believes, is nearing its end. Job’s real complaint is with the deity, and so, in parallel with his verbal sparring with his companions, he turns to God, reiterating his desire to die (6:8–9). Eliphaz had ridiculed Job’s claim to have experienced a revelation from the divine circle. Job defiantly replies that his one consolation is that he disclosed and did not suppress the spirit’s unsettling message (6:10). In his description of his friends’ betrayal, Job evokes Jeremiah’s complaint against his perceived abandonment by God (Jeremiah 15:18).
[6:1] Up spoke Job and he said:
[2–3] Were my anguish weighed, yes, weighed,
And my vexation borne with it on scales,
It would be heavier than the sand at the sea.
That is why my speech is a garble (to you).1
[4] Shaddai’s arrows are in me,2
and my life-spirit drinks up their venom.3
Eloah’s terrors are arrayed against me.
[5] Does a wild ass bray (when it’s) in the meadow?
Does an ox low (when it’s) at its feed?4
[6–7] Can the insipid be eaten without salt?
Is there any taste in the juice of chubeza?5
My gullet refuses to touch it;
To me it’s like sickening food.
[8–9] Would someone grant what I ask?
Would Eloah grant what I hope for?
That Eloah would comply and crush me!
Release his hand and cleave me!
[10] Yet would I have this one consolation,
When I’d writhe and recoil as he’d show no mercy:
That I did not conceal the words of the holy one.6
[11–12] What strength have I that I should wait?
What span (of life) that I should show patience?
Is my strength the strength of stone?7
Is my flesh made of bronze?8
[13] Alas,9 there is no more power in me;
And my wits are driven out of me.
[14] Why is one who turns from evil put to shame?10
And one who fears Shaddai accursed?11
[15–17] My brothers have betrayed me like a wadi,
Like the bed that the wadis stream through.
They turn dark from ice,
And snow piles up12 on them.
In the season they are scorched, they are devastated;
In the seasonal heat, they dissolve from their place.13
[18–20] Caravans turn a twisting route,
They go into the desert and are lost.
Caravans from Tema look out (for the wadis),
Convoys from Sheba hold out for them.
They balk for having relied (on them),
They arrive at (the spot) and are dismayed.
[21] Thus have you now become naught (to me);14
You see a terrifying sight, and you are seized with fear.
[22–23] Have I ever asked you, “Give of yours for me”?
Or “From your means pay out for me”?
Or “Rescue me from an assailant”?
Or “Ransom me from brigands”?
[24] Enlighten me and I’ll silence myself;
Just inform me where I’ve done (you) wrong!
[25–26] Why do my honest15 words provoke (you)?
Why do they prompt you to reproach?
Do you regard (my) words as mere wind?16
This desperate man’s speech as mere wind?
[27] Would you cast lots17 even over an orphan?
Would you barter even over your friend?
[28] So now please oblige and face me;
I swear I won’t lie to your faces.18
[29–30] Turn back now—there will be no corruption!
Turn back—I hold to what’s right!
Is there corruption on my tongue?
Does my palate not discern false speech?19
Job responds to Eliphaz’s argument that if Job would only be patient he would find that his lot would return to its former goodness (God wounds, then heals; 5:18). Job addresses not only his companions; he begins to confront God. Attention from the deity is what the righteous typically desire. Job now regards divine attention as malevolent.
[7:1] Does a mortal not serve a fixed sentence on earth,20
His days like a hired-hand’s days?
[2–3] Like a slave panting for some shade,
Or a hired-hand waiting for his earnings,
So am I meted out moons21 of futility;
Nights of suffering are allotted to me.
[4] When I lie down I think: When can I rise?
Every evening!22
I am sated with tossing till dawn.
[5] My flesh is cloaked with worms and lumps of dirt;
My skin is welted23 and decays.
[6] My days run faster than the shuttle in a loom,
Running out for lack of cord, lack of hope.24
[7] Keep in mind that my life is mere wind;
My eye will no more see the good.
[8] O eye of my Observer, you will see me no longer!
Your eyes are upon me—and I’m gone!
[9–10] A cloud dissipates and passes;
So does one gone down to Sheol25 never come up again.
He does not return to his home;
His place knows him not anymore.26
[11] And so I will not hold back my mouth!
I will speak out of tightness of breath,27
Complain out of bitterness of spirit.
[12] Am I Yamm?28
Or am I Tannin?29
Then why30 do you place me under guard?
[13–14] When I think: My bed will give me comfort,
My couch will relieve my complaint,
You terrify me with nightmares,
You torment me with visions.
[15] My throat31 would rather choke,
(Choosing) death over pain.32
[16] I’m fed up! I won’t live forever!
Stop (tormenting) me! For my days are mere breath.33
[17–18] What is a mortal that you treat him as important?34
Why do you pay him any mind,
Take account of him each morning,
Test him every minute?
[19] Why can’t you just look away from me,
Let go for just a swallow of spit?35
[20] If I’ve sinned, what can I do to you,
O Watcher of Humankind?
Why have you made me your target?36
How could I be a burden to you?37
[21] Why can’t you pardon my transgression,38
Commute my punishment?
For I’ll soon be lying in the dirt—
And when you seek me, I’ll be gone.
1. “Garble” renders a unique noun derived from “stammer” (Obadiah 1:16).
2. There is early Canaanite (Ugaritic) evidence to the effect that Shaddai was a god of the field (Hebrew sadeh) who hunts, making the association with arrows very apt. Here he is depicted like the Canaanite god Resheph; see 5:7 with the comment there.
3. Because both “life-spirit” and “venom” are feminine, like the verb, a reverse of subject and object is plausible: “Their venom saps my life-spirit.”
4. I only speak out because I am in anguish.
5. A Middle Eastern herb, lacking in taste. The Hebrew word (read ḥalamit) is known from ancient Syria (Alalakh). The term for “taste” is polysemous, denoting “reason” as well; see also 12:11 and 34:3. Job is telling Eliphaz that his argument is lacking in reason and that he will have none of it.
6. Not the deity but the spirit that appeared in 4:12–21; “holy ones” in Job refers to the angels (see 5:1; 15:15).
7. Like Leviathan (41:16).
8. Like Behemoth (40:18).
9. For ha’im in this sense, see Numbers 17:28.
10. Reading lama sar me-ra‘ yeḥussad (Ginsberg, “Studies”) for the impossible traditional text. For the verb, compare Proverbs 25:10 (ḥissed “shames”).
11. Reading ye‘uzzar for ya‘azor “he helps”; compare Akkadian ezēru and Phoenician ’zr. Note how Job unwittingly evokes his characterization by the narrator and the deity in 1:1, 8; 2:3.
12. Taking yit‘alem as a pseudo-Aramaized form of yit‘arem.
13. Compare Job 24:19.
14. Job’s language echoes that of Eliphaz in 4:5, suggesting that here, as elsewhere in the discourse, Job is responding to Eliphaz.
15. “Straight” in speech. The term “straight (of path)” (see 1:2) is used of the “heart,” the seat of speech, in 33:3.
16. A different Old Greek reading shows the traditional text was unclear. For ha-le-hokaḥ “as reproach,” I read ha-le-ruaḥ.
17. Compare Psalm 22:19. The lots are cast to determine who benefits.
18. The verb “to lie” alludes to the wadi that has run dry of verses 15–20; the term for “wadi” in the verse being parodied, Jeremiah 15:18, is of the same root, “to disappoint.” Job’s connotation is: I would not fail you the way you have failed me.
19. See Psalm 5:10, where hawwa is in parallel with “no truthfulness.”
20. Compare Isaiah 40:2.
21. In parallel with “nights,” we should understand “moons” literally (so Tur-Sinai)—a metonym for the night—rather than as “months,” as it is customarily understood. Job has not been suffering all that long a time.
22. Reading middei for middad, which would mean “tossing.” If the received text is correct, then we would seem to have an ancient explanatory gloss on the text: “Tossing at evening.”
23. Many derive from Ethiopic, “to congeal” and therefore “to scab,” but context suggests cracking of the skin (so for example Malbim).
24. Hebrew tiqwa means both “cord” and “hope.”
25. The netherworld.
26. The same line is used in Psalm 103:16 in describing the ephemeral nature of life.
27. Distress. “Breath” is the same word as “wind” in verse 7 above.
28. See the comment on 3:10 above. The symbol of the watery chaos is the arch enemy of God.
29. A primeval sea serpent, a form of Yamm.
30. Not “that” but interrogative; see Jeremiah 8:22 (where maddua‘ “why?” glosses the more archaic use of ki, cognate to ’eka in Ugaritic).
31. “Throat” is the same word as “spirit” in verse 11 above.
32. Reading ‘atsbotai (see 9:28 and Psalm 147:3) for ‘atsmotai “my bones.”
33. The same term used by Qohelet (Ecclesiastes) when he says, “All is mere breath!” (1:2 etc.).
34. These two verses are a parody of Psalm 8:5–6 (so for example Fishbane):
“What is a mortal, that you pay him mind, / or a human that you take account of him?
“You have made him but a little less than God; / you have crowned him with honor and glory.”
35. For the instant it takes to swallow one’s spit.
36. See 6:4.
37. The Hebrew was corrected by an ancient scribe to the euphemism “to myself,” but the original reading is acknowledged in rabbinic literature.
38. The verb “to pardon” is literally “to lift (the transgression from off the perpetrator),” thereby producing a play on “burden” (what is carried, the same verb as “to lift”): Job asks the deity, who should have no difficulty in bearing him, to lift off his burden—his presumed sin.