Verse-by-Verse Bible Commentary
Job 6:4

Clarke's Commentary

Verse Job 6:4. The arrows of the Almighty — There is an evident reference here to wounds inflicted by poisoned arrows; and to the burning fever occasioned by such wounds, producing such an intense parching thirst as to dry up all the moisture in the system, stop all the salivary ducts, thicken and inflame the blood, induce putrescency, and terminate in raging mania, producing the most terrifying images, from which the patient is relieved only by death. This is strongly expressed in the fine figure: The POISON DRINKETH UP my SPIRIT; the TERRORS of GOD SET THEMSELVES in ARRAY against me. That calamities are represented among the Eastern writers as the arrows of the Almighty, we have abundant proofs. In reference to this, I shall adduce that fine saying attributed to Aaly, the son-in-law of Mohammed in the Toozuki Teemour; which I have spoken of elsewhere. "It was once demanded of the fourth caliph (Aaly,) 'If the canopy of heaven were a bow; and if the earth were the cord thereof; and if calamities were the arrows; if mankind were the mark for those arrows; and if Almighty God, the tremendous and glorious, were the unerring Archer; to whom could the sons of Adam flee for protection?' The califf answered, 'The sons of Adam must flee unto the Lord.'" This fine image Job keeps in view in the eighth and ninth verses Job 6:8; Job 6:9, wishing that the unerring marksman may let fly these arrows, let loose his hand, to destroy and cut him off.

Bridgeway Bible Commentary

Job’s reply to Eliphaz (6:1-7:21)

Eliphaz had rebuked Job for his impatient outburst. In reply Job acknowledges that God is the one who has sent this affliction, but he points out that if Eliphaz knew how great this suffering was he would understand why Job spoke rashly (6:1-4). An animal cries out only with good reason (for example, if it is hungry for food). Job likewise cries out only with good reason. His tormenting thoughts and Eliphaz’s useless words are to him like food that makes him sick (5-7). He still refuses to curse God, and wishes that God would give him his request and kill him, even if the death is painful (8-10). He cannot endure much more suffering; he is not made of rock or bronze (11-13)!
Job expected kindness from his friends but found none. They are like useless streams that overflow with destructive ice and snow in winter, but dry up in summer (14-17). They disappoint all who go to them expecting to find something beneficial (18-21). Job has not asked his friends for money or help, but he had hoped for sympathy (22-23).
Instead Job receives from his friends nothing but rebuke for his rash words. They make no effort to understand what despair must have caused him to make such an outburst. He accuses them of being heartless, and challenges them to show him plainly where he is wrong (24-27). He is being honest with them; in return he wants some understanding. At least he wants their acknowledgment that he can tell the difference between suffering that is deserved and suffering that is not (28-30).
Life for Job has no pleasure. He looks for death as a worker looks for wages or a slave looks for rest at the end of a hard day’s work. Day and night he has nothing but pain (7:1-5). Bitterly Job says that if God is going to help him, he should do it quickly, otherwise Job will soon be dead. It will then be too late for God to do anything (6-10).
This leads Job to an angry outburst addressed to God. Job asks why God must treat him with such severity, as if he were a wild monster (11-12). Tortured with pain by day and horrible dreams by night, he wants only to die (13-16). If God is so great, why doesn’t he leave Job alone? Job complains that God’s torment of him is so constant he does not even have time to swallow his spittle (17-19). He cannot understand why the mighty God is so concerned over the small sins of one person. Surely they are not such a burden. Surely God can forgive. If he does not hurry and forgive soon, it will be too late, because Job will be dead (20-21).

Coffman's Commentaries on the Bible

JOB'S REPLY TO ELIPHAZ:
JOB DEFENDS THE RASHNESS OF HIS LAMENT

"Then Job answered and said, Oh that my vexation were but weighed, And all my calamity laid in the balances! For now it would be heavier than the sand of the seas; Therefore have my words been rash. For the arrows of the Almighty are within me, The poison whereof my spirit drinketh up: The terrors of God do set themselves in array against me. Doth the wild ass bray when he hath grass? Or loweth the ox over his fodder? Can that which hath no savor be eaten without salt? Or is there any taste in the white of an egg? My soul refuseth to touch them; They are as loathsome food to me."

These words of Job are, "Strong and coherent, contrasted with those of Eliphaz, which are incoherent and without the backbone of any clear conviction, turning hither and thither."The Expositor's Bible, Vol. 2, p. 720. These words of Job were spoken out of deep disappointment and pain in what Eliphaz had said. Eliphaz had applied such words as fool, godless man, confounded and impatient to Job,"The Teachers' Bible Commentary, p. 273. bringing him no comfort whatever.

"Oh that my vexation were but weighed" Job's contention here is that the weight of his vexations greatly outweighs the alleged rashness and impatience of his words.International Critical Commentary, Job, p. 59.

"The arrows of the Almighty are within me" "Job here, for the first time, distinctly names God as the author of his afflictions."Ibid. The perplexity and distress of Job came from his bewilderment concerning why God was wounding him. "The evil-doer knows why he suffers; the martyr is sustained by the truth for which he suffers; but Job suffered without either support or explanation."The Expositor's Bible, op. cit., p. 721.

"Doth the wild ass bray when he hath grass" Here Job appealed to the behavior of animals, the cries of which arise from their distress. The same should be accepted as the allowable behavior of men. "Job argues that he has the right to bray like a hungry wild ass, or to bellow like a hungry bull."Tyndale Old Testament Commentary, Vol., 13, p. 128.

"Or is there any taste in the white of an egg" The RSV renders the last five words of this, in the slime of the purslane. But that rendition is a blunder because, "Most modern readers never heard of the purslane."Ibid. "The purslane is a plant, the flower of which, as it fades away, resolves into an insipid mucilaginous jelly. It is that tasteless jelly which is alluded to here."International Critical Commentary, Job, p. 60.

"My soul refuseth to touch them" This refers to the insipid, tasteless food just mentioned; but what did Job mean? Kelly thought that Job was comparing, "His flat and tasteless existence,"Layman's Bible Commentary, Vol. 8, p. 73. to that tasteless food. Heavenor suggested that Job was comparing his tasteless life to "Insipid and saltless food."The New Bible Commentary, Revised, p. 426. However, Pope wrote that, "The figure of taste is most appropriate as applied to the arguments of Eliphaz";The Anchor Bible, Job, p. 50. and, although Rawlinson stated that either meaning is appropriate,The Pulpit Commentary, Vol. 8, p. 104. we strongly prefer Pope's understanding of the place.

Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible

For the arrows of the Almighty are within me - That is, it is not a light affliction that I endure. I am wounded in a manner which could not be caused by man - called to endure a severity of suffering which shows that it proceeds from the Almighty. Thus called to suffer what man could not cause, he maintains that it is right for him to complain, and that the words which he employed were not an improper expression of the extent of the grief.

The poison whereof drinketh up my spirit - Takes away my rigor, my comfort, my life. He here compares his afflictions with being wounded with poisoned arrows. Such arrows were not unfrequently used among the ancients. The object was to secure certain death, even where the wound caused by the arrow itself would not produce it. Poison was made so concentrated, that the smallest quantity conveyed by the point of an arrow would render death inevitable. This practice contributed much to the barbarity of savage war. Thus, Virgil speaks of poisoned arrows:

Ungere tela manu, ferrumque armare veneno.

Aeneid ix. 773

And again, Aen x. 140:

Vulnera dirigere, et calamos armare veneno.

So Ovid, Lib. 1. de Ponto, Eleg. ii. of the Scythians:

Qui mortis saevo geminent ut vulnere causas,

Omnia vipereo spicula felle linunt.

Compare Justin, Lib. ii. c. 10. section 2; Grotius, de Jure Belli et Pacis; and Virgil, En. xii. 857. In the Odyssey, i. 260ff we read of Ulysses that he went to Ephyra, a city of Thessaly, to obtain from Ilus, the son of Mermer, deadly poison, that he might smear it over the iron point of his arrows. The pestilence which produced so great a destruction in the Grecian camp is also said by Homer (Iliad i. 48) to have been caused by arrows shot from the bow of Apollo. The phrase “drinketh up the spirit” is very expressive. We speak now of the sword thirsting for blood; but this language is more expressive and striking. The figure is not uncommon in the poetry of the East and of the ancients. In the poem of Zohair, the third of the Moallakat, or those transcribed in golden letters, and suspended in the temple of Mecca, the same image occurs. It is thus rendered by Sir William Jones:

Their javelins had no share in drinking the blood of Naufel.

A similar expression occurs in Sophocles in Trachinn, verse 1061, as quoted by Schultens, when describing the pestilence in which Hercules suffered:

ἐκ δὲ χλωρὸν αἵμα μου Πέπωκεν ἤδη -

ek de chlōron haima mou Pepōken ēdē -

This has been imitated by Cicero in Tusculan. Disp. ii. 8:

Haec me irretivit veste furiali inscium,

Quae lateri inhaerens morsu lacerat viscera,

Urgensque graviter, pulmonum haurit spiritus,

Jam decolorem sanguinem omnem exsorbuit.

So Lucan, Pharsa. ix. 741ff gives a similar description:

Ecce subit virus taciturn, carpitque medullas

Ignis edax calidaque iacendit viscera tabe.

Ebibit humorem circa vitalia fusum

Pestis, et in sicco linguan torrere palato Coepit.

Far more beautiful, however, than the expressions of any of the ancient Classics - more tender, more delicate, more full of pathos - is the description which the Christian poet Cowper gives of the arrow that pierces the side of the sinner. It is the account of his own conversion:

I was a stricken deer that left the herd

Long since. With many an artery deep infix’d

My panting side was charged when I withdrew

To seek a tranquil death in distant shades.

There I was found by one, who had himself

Been hurt by the archers. In his side he bore,

And in his hands and feet, the cruel scars.

Task, b. iii.

Of such wounding he did not complain. The arrow was extracted by the tender hand of him who alone had power to do it. Had Job known of him; had he been fully acquainted with the plan of mercy through him, and the comfort which a wounded sinner may find there, we should not have heard the bitter complaints which he uttered in his trials. Let us not judge him with the severity which we may use of one who is afflicted and complains under the full light of the gospel.

The terrors of God do set themselves in array against me - Those things which God uses to excite terror. The word which is rendered “set in array” (ערך ‛ârak) properly denotes the drawing up of a line for battle; and the sense is here, that all these terrors seem to be drawn up in battle array, as if on purpose to destroy him. No expression could more strikingly describe the condition of an awakened sinner, though it is not certain that Job used it precisely in this sense. The idea as he used it is, that all that God commonly employed to produce alarm seemed to be drawn up as in a line of battle against him.

Smith's Bible Commentary

Chapter 6

So Job responds to him and he says, Oh that my grief were thoroughly weighed, and my calamities laid in the balances together! ( Job 6:1-2 )

Now, of course, picturesque, you got to see it. In those days, the balances, the scales were always balances and they had the little weights that they would put on the one side and then, you know, the grapes or whatever you were buying were put on the other side. And when the balance came to be equal, then you had the talent, the weight of the talent, the talent of grapes and so forth. And you've got to see these balances. Now he said, "Oh that my calamities, my griefs were laid in the balance."

They would be heavier than the sands of the sea ( Job 6:3 ):

So you picture all of the sand of the sea put in the one side of the balance, and now you're pouring in Job's calamities and Job's grief and it balances up. I think he's exaggerating a little bit. "They would be heavier than the sand of the sea."

therefore my words are swallowed up. For the arrows of the Almighty are within me, the poison whereof drinketh up my spirit: the terrors of God do set themselves in array against me. Does the wild donkey bray when he hath grass? or does the ox loweth over his fodder? Can that which is unsavory be eaten without salt? or is there any taste in the white of an egg? The things that my soul refused to touch are as my sorrowful meat. Oh that I might have my request; and that God would just grant me the thing that I long for! ( Job 6:3-8 )

Oh, what is it, Job, that you request?

Even that it would please God to destroy me; that he would let loose his hand, and cut me off! ( Job 6:9 )

And poor old Job, he's really in desperate straits. "I just wish God would grant me my request, the thing that I long for. And it's just that I be dead; I be cut off. I can't stand life anymore." And I'm certain that all of us have come to situations in our own lives that are so unsavory, so distasteful that there have been those same thoughts pass through. "Oh, that God would grant me my desire." But yet, I don't think that we always really think those thoughts sincerely. I think a lot of times we say that. "Oh, I wish I were dead." But we really don't mean it.

Like the fellow who was carrying his heavy load on a hot, hot day. And he finally came to this river. And he just sort of collapsed and he set the load down and he was just sitting there by the river, and he said, "Oh, death, death, please come, death." And he felt a tap on his shoulder and he looked up and there was death. It said, "Did you call me?" And he said, "Yes, would you mind helping me get this back on my back so I can get going again?" So we don't always mean what we say when we call for death or wish it was all over. But yet we feel that way sometimes, you know, at least for the moment of despair. And Job is expressing it himself. Now he's still, though, expressing about, he doesn't know what death is all about. "For if I were destroyed,"

Then should I yet have comfort; yes, I would harden myself in sorrow: let him not spare; for I have not concealed the words of the Holy One. What is my strength, that I should hope? and what is mine end, that I should prolong my life? Is my strength the strength of stones? or is my flesh of brass? Is not my help in me? and is wisdom driven quite from me? To him ( Job 6:10-14 )

Now he's talking to Eliphaz and to the whole speech that Eliphaz had given to him.

To him that is afflicted pity should be showed from his friend ( Job 6:14 );

Look, man, I need pity. I don't need someone to come and jump on my case at this point. I need pity.

My brethren have dealt deceitfully as a brook, and as the stream of brooks they pass away; Which are blackish by reason of the ice, and wherein the snow is hid: What time they wax warm, they vanish: when it is hot, they are consumed out of their place ( Job 6:15-17 ).

Now this is very picturesque and it's poetry. And thus, it's meant to be picturesque and he's just saying, "My friends are like ice or like snow. They appear to be friends, but when things get hot, they melt. They don't exist." I've had those kind of friends. They're called fair-weather friends. When things get hot, you'll never find them.

The paths of their way are turned aside; they go to nothing, and perish ( Job 6:18 ).

Down to verse Job 6:21 :

For now you are nothing; you see my casting down, and you are afraid. Did I say unto you, Come to me? Give me a reward of your substance? Or, Deliver me from the enemy's hand? Redeem me from the hand of the mighty? ( Job 6:21-23 )

Job said, "Look, man, did I ask you to come around? Did I ask you for anything? Don't give me anymore. I'm tired of you. I didn't ask you for anything. I didn't say I want you to give me something." He said, "I didn't call for you." And then he went on to say,

Teach me, and I will hold my tongue ( Job 6:24 ):

Tell me something that's worthwhile and I'll be quiet. You haven't told me anything worthwhile.

and cause me to understand wherein I have erred. How forcible are right words! but what doth your arguing reprove? ( Job 6:24-25 )

Boy, Job gets really cutting with his tongue.

Do you imagine to reprove words, and the speeches of one that is desperate, which are as wind? ( Job 6:26 )

Just a bag of wind, man, it just...you don't have anything to say of any value.

Yea, you overwhelm the fatherless, and you dig a pit for your friend. Now therefore be content, look on me; for it is evident unto you if I lie. Return, I pray you, let it not be iniquity; yea, return again, my righteousness is in it. Is there any iniquity in my tongue? cannot my taste discern perverse things? ( Job 6:27-30 ) "

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

Job’s reason for complaining 6:1-7

Job said he complained because of his great irritation. His calamities were as heavy as wet sand (Job 6:2-3). The Hebrew word translated "iniquity" in Job 6:2 occurs only here in the Old Testament. We should probably translate it "calamity" or "misfortune." Job implied that his words of complaint were nothing in comparison to his suffering. His situation was harder for him to bear because he believed his misfortune came from God.

"The God he had known and the God he now experiences seemed irreconcilable." [Note: Rowley, p. 58.]

Job refused to accept his trials without something to make them bearable, namely, complaining. Similarly a person refuses tasteless food without salt (Job 6:6-7).

Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible

For the arrows of the Almighty [are] within me,.... Which are a reason proving the weight and heaviness of his affliction, and also of his hot and passionate expressions he broke out into; which designs not so much outward calamities, as famine, pestilence, thunder and lightning, which are called the arrows of God, Deuteronomy 32:23; all which had attended Job, and were his case; being reduced to extreme poverty, had malignant and pestilential ulcers upon him, and his sheep destroyed by thunder and lightning; and which were like arrows, that came upon him suddenly, secretly, and at unawares, and very swiftly; these arrows flew thick and first about, him, and stuck in him, and were sharp and painful, and wounded and slew him; for he was now under slaying circumstances of Providence; but rather these mean, together with his afflictions, the inward distresses, grief, and anguish of his mind arising from them, being attended with a keen sense of the divine displeasure, which was the case of David, and is expressed in much the same language, Psalms 38:1; Job here considers his afflictions as coming from God, as arrows shot from his bow; and as coming from him, not as a father, in a way of paternal chastisement, and love, dealing with him as a child of his, but accounting him as an enemy, and setting him up as a mark or butt to shoot at, see Job 7:20; yea, not only as the arrows of a strong and mighty man, expert in archery, who shoots his arrows with great strength and skill, so that they miss not, and return not in vain, see Psalms 120:4; but as being the arrows of the Almighty, which come with force irresistible, with the stretching and lighting down of his arm, and with the indignation of his anger intolerable:

the poison whereof drinketh up my spirit; alluding to the custom of some people, that used to dip their arrows in poison, or besmear them with it; so the Persians, as Jarchi observes, and Heliodorus c reports of the Ethiopians, that they dipped their arrows in the poison of dragons, and which made them inflammatory, and raised such an heat, and such burning pains, as were intolerable; and now, as such poison presently infected the blood, and penetrated into and seized the animal spirits, and inflamed and soon exhausted them; so the heat of divine wrath, and a sense of it, which attended the arrows of God, his afflictions on Job, so affected him, as not only to take away his breath, that he could not speak, as in Job 6:3, or rather, as to cause those warm and hot expressions to break out from him, but even to eat up his vital spirits, and leave him spiritless and lifeless; which was Heman's case, and similar to Job's, Psalms 88:3;

the terrors of God do set themselves in array against me; the Lord is sometimes compared to a man of war in arms, stirring up his wrath and jealousy, Exodus 15:3; and in this light he was viewed by Job, and so he apprehended him, as coming forth against him, and which was terrible; and his terrors were like an army of soldiers set in battle array, in rank and file, ready to discharge, or discharging their artillery upon him; and which sometimes design the inward terrors of mind, of a guilty conscience, the terrors of God's judgment here, or of a future judgment hereafter, of death and hell, and eternal damnation, through the menaces and curses of the law of God transgressed and broken; but here afflictive providences, or terrible things in righteousness, which surrounded him, attacked him in great numbers, and in a hostile military way, with great order and regularity, and which were frightful to behold; perhaps regard may be also had to those scaring dreams and terrifying visions he sometimes had, see Job 7:14.

c Ethiopic. l. 9. c. 19.

Henry's Complete Commentary on the Bible

      1 But Job answered and said,   2 Oh that my grief were thoroughly weighed, and my calamity laid in the balances together!   3 For now it would be heavier than the sand of the sea: therefore my words are swallowed up.   4 For the arrows of the Almighty are within me, the poison whereof drinketh up my spirit: the terrors of God do set themselves in array against me.   5 Doth the wild ass bray when he hath grass? or loweth the ox over his fodder?   6 Can that which is unsavoury be eaten without salt? or is there any taste in the white of an egg?   7 The things that my soul refused to touch are as my sorrowful meat.

      Eliphaz, in the beginning of his discourse, had been very sharp upon Job, and yet it does not appear that Job gave him any interruption, but heard him patiently till he had said all he had to say. Those that would make an impartial judgment of a discourse must hear it out, and take it entire. But, when he had concluded, he makes his reply, in which he speaks very feelingly.

      I. He represents his calamity, in general, as much heavier than either he had expressed it or they had apprehended it, Job 6:2; Job 6:3. He could not fully describe it; they would not fully apprehend it, or at least would not own that they did; and therefore he would gladly appeal to a third person, who had just weights and just balances with which to weigh his grief and calamity, and would do it with an impartial hand. He wished that they would set his grief and all the expressions of it in one scale, his calamity and all the particulars of it in the other, and (though he would not altogether justify himself in his grief) they would find (as he says, Job 23:2; Job 23:2) that his stroke was heavier than his groaning; for, whatever his grief was, his calamity was heavier than the sand of the sea: it was complicated, it was aggravated, every grievance weighty, and all together numerous as the sand. "Therefore (says he) my words are swallowed up;" that is, "Therefore you must excuse both the brokenness and the bitterness of my expressions. Do not think it strange if my speech be not so fine and polite as that of an eloquent orator, or so grave and regular as that of a morose philosopher: no, in these circumstances I can pretend neither to the one nor to the other; my words are, as I am, quite swallowed up." Now, 1. He hereby complains of it as his unhappiness that his friends undertook to administer spiritual physic to him before they thoroughly understood his case and knew the worst of it. It is seldom that those who are at ease themselves rightly weigh the afflictions of the afflicted. Every one feels most from his own burden; few feel from other people's. 2. He excuses the passionate expressions he had used when he cursed his day. Though he could not himself justify all he had said, yet he thought his friends should not thus violently condemn it, for really the case was extraordinary, and that might be connived at in such a man of sorrows as he now was which in any common grief would by no means be allowed. 3. He bespeaks the charitable and compassionate sympathy of his friends with him, and hopes, by representing the greatness of his calamity, to bring them to a better temper towards him. To those that are pained it is some ease to be pitied.

      II. He complains of the trouble and terror of mind he was in as the sorest part of his calamity, Job 6:4; Job 6:4. Herein he was a type of Christ, who, in his sufferings, complained most of the sufferings of his soul. Now is my soul troubled,John 12:27. My soul is exceedingly sorrowful,Matthew 26:38. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?Matthew 27:46. Poor Job sadly complains here, 1. Of what he felt The arrows of the Almighty are within me. It was not so much the troubles themselves he was under that put him into this confusion, his poverty, disgrace, and bodily pain; but that which cut him to the heart and put him into this agitation, was to think that the God he loved and served had brought all this upon him and laid him under these marks of his displeasure. Note, Trouble of mind is the sorest trouble. A wounded spirit who can bear! Whatever burden of affliction, in body or estate, God is pleased to lay upon us, we may well afford to submit to it as long as he continues to the use of our reason and the peace of our consciences; but, if in either of these we be disturbed, our case is sad indeed and very pitiable. The way to prevent God's fiery darts of trouble is with the shield of faith to quench Satan's fiery darts of temptation. Observe, He calls them the arrows of the Almighty; for it is an instance of the power of God above that of any man that he can with his arrows reach the soul. He that made the soul can make his sword to approach to it. The poison or heat of these arrows is said to drink up his spirit, because it disturbed his reason, shook his resolution, exhausted his vigour, and threatened his life; and therefore his passionate expressions, though they could not be justified, might be excused. 2. Of what he feared. He saw himself charged by the terrors of God, as by an army set in battle-array, and surrounded by them. God, by his terrors, fought against him. As he had no comfort when he retired inward into his own bosom, so he had none when he looked upward towards Heaven. He that used to be encouraged with the consolations of God not only wanted those, but was amazed with the terrors of God.

      III. He reflects upon his friends for their severe censures of his complaints and their unskilful management of his case. 1. Their reproofs were causeless. He complained, it is true, now that he was in this affliction, but he never used to complain, as those do who are of a fretful unquiet spirit, when he was in prosperity: he did not bray when he had grass, nor low over his fodder,Job 6:5; Job 6:5. But, now that he was utterly deprived of all his comforts, he must be a stock or a stone, and not have the sense of an ox or a wild ass, if he did not give some vent to his grief. He was forced to eat unsavoury meats, and was so poor that he had not a grain of salt wherewith to season them, nor to give a little taste to the white of an egg, which was now the choicest dish he had at his table, Job 6:6; Job 6:6. Even that food which once he would have scorned to touch he was now glad of, and it was his sorrowful meat,Job 6:7; Job 6:7. Note, It is wisdom not to use ourselves or our children to be nice and dainty about meat and drink, because we know not how we or they may be reduced, nor how that which we now disdain may be made acceptable by necessity. 2. Their comforts were sapless and insipid; so some understand Job 6:6; Job 6:7. He complains he had nothing now offered to him for his relief that was proper for him, no cordial, nothing to revive and cheer his spirits; what they had afforded was in itself as tasteless as the white of an egg, and, when applied to him, as loathsome and burdensome as the most sorrowful meat. I am sorry he should say thus of what Eliphaz had excellently well said, Job 5:8-13; Job 5:8-13, &c. But peevish spirits are too apt thus to abuse their comforters.