Job Lesson 14: Job’s Response Ch 6 Part 3  

In 6:1-20 Job seems to be on the defense. Beginning with 6:21 Job goes on the offence against what seems to be a predetermined attack on Job’s character by his three “friends”. Remember in 5:27 Eliphaz states “, we have searched it”,

In 6:21 Job used the pronoun ye. He spoke to Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar together. They were once friends and men Job considered brothers, but because the way Eliphaz spoke in Chapters 4 and 5 they had become nothing to Job. 

V23-23 Job lets them know he did not ask them to come. He did not expect them to try to replace what he had lost or even to attempt to save Job from those who stole from him and killed his servants. He did not ask anything from them accept pity and comfort.

V24-25a Job challenges Eliphaz to teach him what he had done to cause the trouble to come upon him. If they could teach Job to understand then he would keep quiet and listen. If his words were right Job would be forced to listen.

·       Prov 9:9 Describes Job. Job was wise and would respond from right, true words.

Eliphaz implied wrongly implied many things about Job. He implied Job was a man of crafty devices but he never named what chafty action Job did. This is true of the other implications of sins.

V25b-27 Job let Eliphaz know his were just as the wind. The wind makes noise and can be felt but not seen. When the wind stops there is nothing left of it except the damage it might cause.

·       The words of Eliphaz overwhelmed Job. Instead of comforting and uplifting Job they caused damage that Job could not overlook.

V27 “ye overwhelm the fatherless”: Job’s children were killed by a wind from the wilderness. In 4:4 Eliphaz said a foolish man’s children are far from safety. Job no longer had any children

·       27b Pit is seen in 80 verses in the Bible. It is usually seen as a place where one is trapped without hope of escaping, often tied to the grave and death. Job was being driven deeper and deeper into a pit of despair. (17:14-16)

·       Ps 35:7, 40:2, 50:23

·       Ps 57:6 They have prepared a net for my steps; my soul is bowed down: they have digged a pit before me, into the midst whereof they are fallen themselves. Selah.

·       Those who dig a pit to trap God’s people are actually digging a pit that they will eventually end up in.

V28-29 Job saw through the words of Eliphaz. They were used to strip Job of his righteousness and replace it with iniquity.

V30 Many use these statements against Job accusing him of being self-righteous. But Job was a man God called perfect, one who loved God and eschewed evil. Job was certainly a man who was able to discern perverse things and he avoid them.

Job did not only eschew evil; he taught what it means to eschew evil :

·       Ex 20:14 Thou shalt not commit adultery. Committing adultery is evil.

·       Job 31:1, 9-12

·       Mt 5:28 But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.

·       Eschewing Evil: Recognizing evil and avoiding the committing of it.

·       2Cor 4:1-11