Job 6-8: Job Has No Hope

Thoughts

Job 6

Job replies to Eliphaz’s speech. He wishes his grief could be weighed as it would outweigh the sand of the sea. His sorrow is immense. 

He describes feeling pierced by the “arrows of the Almighty.” He feels poisoned by God’s wrath and unable to eat or find comfort.

He wishes God would grant his request to die as then he could find comfort. He is weak and no resources. 

To his friends: He says kindness should be shown to a friend in despair. His friends are treacherous as torrential streams that dry up when it is hot. He has asked nothing of them. 

He does offer “Teach me, and I will be silent.” He insists there is no deceit within him. 

Job 7

Job compares human life to forced labor:He describes his days as meaningless toil and his nights as sleepless misery.

His body is covered in sores and worms.

He says time feels distorted: “My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle”

Job then cries out to God. Job begs God to remember that life is fleeting: “Remember that my life is but a breath.” This section has echoes of Ecclesiastes. 

He tells God “I will not restrain my mouth… I will speak in the anguish of my spirit.”

He asks “Am I the sea, or a sea monster, that You set a guard over me?” Why are You treating me like a cosmic threat that must be restrained?

Job describes terrifying dreams and visions. God gives him no rest, even in sleep. He tells God to “leave me alone.”

Job wonders why God has seen him as such a burden. If he has sinned does it even affect God?

Job 8: Bildad Speaks

Bildad decides to speak bluntly. “How long will you say these things, and the words of your mouth be a great wind?

He says God is just and never perverts justice. Therefore, if Job’s children died, they must have sinned. He tells Job that if he were pure and upright, God would restore him quickly.

Bildad urges Job to look to the wisdom of past generations: He suggests the ancestors’ teachings prove that God always rewards the upright and punishes the wicked. (Cain and Abel though?)

Bildad uses imagery to describe the wicked:

• Like papyrus that withers without water,
• Like a spider’s web that can’t support weight,
• Like a plant that flourishes in the sun but is quickly uprooted.

Bildad ends on what sounds like encouragement, but it’s conditional: “Surely God does not reject a blameless man, nor strengthen the hand of evildoers.”

Questions

Is this actually how people talked back then?

Did Job actually have worms on him?

Did Job know of Satan?

Application

Jacob may have physically wrestled with God, but Job wrestled with him emotionally. Here we see a raw honest conversation to God from one of His suffering children.  We are always allowed to bring our hurt or confusion to God. God invites us in to a deep relationship with Him and that includes the hard dark moments. Job gets real blunt as he says, “If I sin, what do I do to you, you watcher of mankind? Why have you made me your mark? Why have I become a burden to you?”