◄ Job 6:3 ►














Pulpit Commentary Homiletics
Scales For Misery
Job 6:2
W.F. Adeney
At length Job has an opportunity to reply to his friend's harangue, and he at once touches on its weak point by implication. Eliphaz has not been sufficiently sympathetic; he has not duly appreciated Job's "abysmal and boundless misery." His wise precepts may apply to some extent to the afflictions of ordinary men, but they are vitiated by his failure to enter into the abnormal distresses of Job. The cursing of his day, which has been wrung out of Job by very anguish of soul, is misjudged by his censor, because the awful depth of that anguish is not appreciated. Therefore Job longs for some scales by which his misery may be weighed, that the lack of appreciation by Eliphaz may be corrected.

I. THE SUFFERER NATURALLY DESIRES AN APPRECIATION OF HIS SUFFERINGS,

1. That he may be understood. You cannot understand a man till you know how be feels. Words are more than descriptions of bare facts; they may be utterances of the heart. To comprehend their import we must enter into the feelings of the speaker. We should study the needs and troubles of those whom we desire to understand in order to help them.

2. That he may be fairly judged. Eliphaz had made the most galling charges against Job, partly because he was utterly below understanding the afflicted man's overwhelming grief. We are unjust with those who are incomprehensible to us. Christ's executioners did not know him, and he prayed, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34). The mob that yelled at him anti hounded him to death had not the least conception of his Gethsemane agony.

3. That he may receive sympathy. Sympathy helps us to understand one another. But without some preliminary knowledge we can have no kind of sympathy. Ignorant, well-meant attempts at sympathy hurt rather than heal, and chafe the very wounds they are intended to soothe.

II. IT IS NOT EASY TO FIND SCALES IN WHICH SUFFERING CAN BE WEIGHED. Where shall we look for a standard of measurement? We cannot judge by outside tokens of grief; for some are reserved and self-restrained, while others are demonstrative in their abandonment to grief. We cannot judge by the measure of the events that have caused the suffering; for some feel the same calamity much more keenly than it would be felt by others. Each sufferer is tempted to think that his troubles surpass all others. We can only understand a man in so far as we can succeed in putting ourselves in his place. But only Christ can do this perfectly. His incarnation is a guarantee of his complete comprehension of human sin and sorrow; so that the sufferer who is misapprehended by his most intimate earthly friends may be assured of the perfect sympathy of his Saviour. Moreover, with his own thoughts the sufferer might measure his grief in a way which would help him to apprize it more justly than by wild conjectures. Suppose he measured it against his blessings: is it so vastly greater? Or suppose he weighed it with his deserts: is it so immensely heavier? Or suppose he compared it with what Christ suffered for him: is there really any comparison between the Christian's roughest cross and the awful cross of his Saviour? - W.F.A.

Biblical Illustrator
How forcible are right words!
Job 6:25
The force of right words
Bishop Percival.
Who has not felt the superiority of the power of Job's words compared with those of the words of his friends? How is this? Job suffered, struggled, and sorrowed, and therefore he learned something of the human heart. Irritating to him were the words of his friends. Those words were as nothing; they reproved nothing; they appealed to nothing in the sorrow-stricken man. Righteous words would have been precious to him; hence his bitter disappointment after listening to the effusion of Eliphaz. Who has not felt the feebleness of mere platitudes when the soul has longed for sympathy?

I. THAT WORDS MAY POSSESS A RIGHTEOUS OR UNRIGHTEOUS CHARACTER. "Right words." God declared to Job's friends, "Ye have not spoken of Me the thing that is right, as My servant Job hath."

1. The power of speech is a Divine gift. Whether words were originally given, or were elaborated by the faculty of speech, does not alter the question of the Divine origin of the gift. Without speech, where would have been the outcome of man's spiritual energies? How the soul speaks in the voice! "Burning words" proclaim the power of the spirit that is in man.

2. The Divine gift of words is intended to be a righteous power. By perversion of words sin was introduced; by the righteousness of words error and evil shall be destroyed. The words of God "are spirit and life."

3. In proportion to the excellence of the gift will be the responsibility of the speaker. "By thy words shalt thou be justified," etc.

II. THE POWER OF WORDS FOR GOOD OR EVIL IS IN PROPORTION TO THEIR RIGHTEOUSNESS OR UNRIGHTEOUSNESS. "Doth not the ear try words?" "Righteous words reprove."

1. The words of God are instruments of righteousness. "Do not My words do good?" (Micah 2:7.)

2. The words of man are only righteous as they harmonise with the words of God. "Let your speech be always with grace" (Colossians 4:6).

3. In the "war of words" the righteous words shall be victorious. Great is truth, and must prevail.

4. Divine power operates through the words of the good. "I will be to thee a mouth and wisdom." Therefore "how forcible are right words!"

5. Evil words are destructive. "Whose word doth eat as doth a canker." The unrighteous words of Job's friends possessed a power that forced him to exclaim, "How forcible are right words!"

(Bishop Percival.)

Right words
J. Caryl.
Words are right three ways.

I. IN THE MATTER, when they are true.

II. IN THE MANNER, when they are plain, direct, and perspicuous.

III. IN THEIR USE, when they are duly and properly applied; when the arrow is carried home to the white, then they are right words, or words of righteousness. When this threefold rightness meets in words, how forcible, how strong are such words!

(J. Caryl.)

The potency of language
A. T. Pierson, D. D.
Language is more than the expression of ideas. It sustains a more vital relation. Thought is a remote abstraction until it becomes visible, tangible, concrete, in words. Hence Wordsworth, with profound philosophy, wrote, "Language is the incarnation of thought." But more than this, a man knows not what he thinks until he tries to put it into words. The tongue or pen sometimes like a whetstone sharpens thought, giving it edge and point; sometimes like a painter's pencil, it communicates definiteness, precision, and exquisite colouring to the outlines of thought; again, like a prism, it seems to analyse and separate blended ideas; again, like a crystal, it imparts clearness, symmetry, brilliance; or like a mirror, it reflects and multiplies the rays of light. Verily, "how forcible are right words!"

(A. T. Pierson, D. D.).

People
Job, Tema
Places
Sheba, Tema, Uz
Topics
Broken, Heavier, Impetuous, Outweigh, Rash, Sand, Sands, Seas, Swallowed, Uncontrolled, Vehement, Weight, Wonder
Outline
1. Job shows that his complaints are not causeless.
8. He wishes for death, wherein he is assured of comfort.
14. He reproves his friends of unkindness.

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Job 6:1-13

     5945   self-pity

Job 6:2-3

     4360   sand

Library
July 12 Evening
Let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works.--HEB. 10:24. How forcible are right words!--I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance. They that feared the Lord spake often one to another: and the Lord hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name.--If two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. …
Anonymous—Daily Light on the Daily Path

Of Sufferings
Of Sufferings Be patient under all the sufferings which God is pleased to send you: if your love to Him be pure, you will not seek Him less on Calvary, than on Tabor; and, surely, He should be as much loved on that as on this, since it was on Calvary He made the greater display of His Love for you. Be not like those, who give themselves to Him at one season, and withdraw from Him at another: they give themselves only to be caressed; and wrest themselves back again, when they come to be crucified, …
Madame Guyon—A Short and Easy Method of Prayer

"Now the God of Hope Fill You with all Joy and Peace in Believing," &C.
Rom. xv. 13.--"Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing," &c. It is usual for the Lord in his word to turn his precepts unto promises, which shows us, that the commandments of God do not so much import an ability in us, or suppose strength to fulfil them, as declare that obligation which lies upon us, and his purpose and intention to accomplish in some, what he requires of all: and therefore we should accordingly convert all his precepts unto prayers, seeing he hath made …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

"Thou Shall Keep Him in Perfect Peace, Whose Mind is Stayed on Thee, Because He Trusteth in Thee. "
Isaiah xxvi. 3.--"Thou shall keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee, because he trusteth in thee." Christ hath left us his peace, as the great and comprehensive legacy, "My peace I leave you," John xiv. 27. And this was not peace in the world that he enjoyed; you know what his life was, a continual warfare; but a peace above the world, that passeth understanding. "In the world you shall have trouble, but in me you shall have peace," saith Christ,--a peace that shall make trouble …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

The Holiness of God
The next attribute is God's holiness. Exod 15:51. Glorious in holiness.' Holiness is the most sparkling jewel of his crown; it is the name by which God is known. Psa 111:1. Holy and reverend is his name.' He is the holy One.' Job 6:60. Seraphims cry, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory.' Isa 6:6. His power makes him mighty, his holiness makes him glorious. God's holiness consists in his perfect love of righteousness, and abhorrence of evil. Of purer eyes than …
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

The Sinner Stripped of his Vain Pleas.
1, 2. The vanity of those pleas which sinners may secretly confide in, is so apparent that they will be ashamed at last to mention them before God.--3. Such as, that they descended from pious us parents.--4. That they had attended to the speculative part of religion.--5. That they had entertained sound notion..--6, 7. That they had expressed a zealous regard to religion, and attended the outward forms of worship with those they apprehended the purest churches.--8. That they had been free from gross …
Philip Doddridge—The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul

Joy
'The fruit of the Spirit is joy.' Gal 5:52. The third fruit of justification, adoption, and sanctification, is joy in the Holy Ghost. Joy is setting the soul upon the top of a pinnacle - it is the cream of the sincere milk of the word. Spiritual joy is a sweet and delightful passion, arising from the apprehension and feeling of some good, whereby the soul is supported under present troubles, and fenced against future fear. I. It is a delightful passion. It is contrary to sorrow, which is a perturbation …
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

A Solemn Address to those who Will not be Persuaded to Fall in with the Design of the Gospel.
1. Universal success not to be expected.--2-4. Yet, as unwilling absolutely to give up any, the author addresses thou who doubt the truth of Christianity, urging an inquiry into its evidences, and directing to prayer methods for that purpose.--5 Those who determine to give it up without further examination.--6. And presume to set themselves to oppose it.--7, 8. Those who speculatively assent to Christianity as true, and yet will sit down without any practical regard to its most important and acknowledged …
Philip Doddridge—The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul

"And we all do Fade as a Leaf, and Our Iniquities, Like the Wind, have Taken us Away. "
Isaiah lxiv. 6.--"And we all do fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away." Here they join the punishment with the deserving cause, their uncleanness and their iniquities, and so take it upon them, and subscribe to the righteousness of God's dealing. We would say this much in general--First, Nobody needeth to quarrel God for his dealing. He will always be justified when he is judged. If the Lord deal more sharply with you than with others, you may judge there is a difference …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

Job
The book of Job is one of the great masterpieces of the world's literature, if not indeed the greatest. The author was a man of superb literary genius, and of rich, daring, and original mind. The problem with which he deals is one of inexhaustible interest, and his treatment of it is everywhere characterized by a psychological insight, an intellectual courage, and a fertility and brilliance of resource which are nothing less than astonishing. Opinion has been divided as to how the book should be …
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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