32 matching verse commentaries
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
INTRODUCTION TO Job 6 This and the following chapter contain Job's answer to the speech of Eliphaz in the two foregoing; he first excuses his impatience by the greatness of his afflictions, which, if weighed by good and impartial hands, would be found to be heavier than the sand of the sea, and which words were wanting to express, Job 6:1; and the...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
But Job answered and said. Though Eliphaz thought his speech was unanswerable, being, as he and his friends judged, unquestionably true, and the fruit of strict, laborious, and diligent search and inquiry; or, "then Job answered" (t), as the same particle is rendered, Job 4:1; after he had heard Eliphaz out; he waited with patience until he had...
Matthew Henry - Complete Commentary - Matthew Henry
Eliphaz concluded his discourse with an air of assurance; very confident he was that what he had said was so plain and so pertinent that nothing could be objected in answer to it. But, though he that is first in his own cause seems just, yet his neighbour comes and searches him. Job is not convinced by all he had said, but still justifies himself...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Oh that my grief were thoroughly weighed,.... Or, "in weighing weighed" (u), most nicely and exactly weighed; that is, his grievous affliction, which caused so much grief of heart, and which had been shown in words and gestures; or his "wrath" and "anger" (w), as others render it: not his anger against Eliphaz, as Sephorno, but as before, meaning...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
For now it would be heavier than the sand of the sea,.... Or "seas" (z); all sand is heavy in its own nature, Proverbs 27:3; especially the sand of the sea, that which is immediately taken out of it; for that on the shore is lighter, being dried by the winds and heat of the sun, but the other is heavier, through the additional weight of water; and...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
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...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Doth the wild ass bray when he hath grass? or loweth the ox over his fodder?] No, they neither of them do, when the one is in a good pasture, and the other has a sufficiency of provender; but when they are in want of food, the one will bray, and the other will low, which are tones peculiar to those creatures, and express their mournful complaints;...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Can that which is unsavoury be eaten without salt?.... As any sort of pulse, peas, beans, lentiles, c. which have no savoury and agreeable taste unless salted, and so many other things and are disagreeable to men, and not relished by them, and more especially things bitter and unpleasant; and therefore Job intimates, it need not seem strange that...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
The things [that] my soul refused to touch [are] as my sorrowful meat. Meaning either the above things, that which is unsavoury, and the white of an egg, of any other food, which in the time of his prosperity he would not touch with his fingers, much less eat, but now was glad of, and were his constant food in his present sorrowful circumstances;...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And that I might have my request,.... Or that it "might come" (m); that it might go up to heaven, enter there, and come into the ears of the Lord, be attended to, admitted, and received by him, see Psalms 18:6; or come to Job, be returned into his bosom, be answered and fulfilled; the same with the desire that "cometh", which is, when the thing...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Even that it would please God to destroy me,.... Not with an everlasting destruction of body and soul; for destruction from the Almighty was a terror to him, Job 31:23; but with the destruction of the body only; not with an annihilation of it, but with the dissolution of it, or of that union there was between his soul and body: the word (n) used...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Then should I yet have comfort,.... Either before death, and in the midst of all his pains and sorrows, being in view of it as near at hand, and sure and certain; could he but be assured of its near approach, he could exult in his afflictions; it would be an alleviation of his trouble, that he should be soon out of it; and he would sit and sing...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
What [is] my strength, that I should hope?.... For a perfect restoration of health, suggested by Eliphaz; since it was so sadly weakened by the present affliction, which made death more desirable than life lengthened out in so much weakness, pain, and sorrow; or "that I should bear" (w), such a weight and heavy load that lay upon him, and crushed...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
[Is] my strength the strength of stones?.... Is it like such especially which are foundation and corner stones that support a building? or like a stone pillar, that will bear a prodigious weight? no, it is not: or [is] my flesh of brass? is it made of brass? or is it like to brass for hardness, or for sustaining any weight laid on it? it is not;...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
[Is] my help in me?.... Or "my defence" (y), as some; is it not in my power to defend myself against the calumnies and reproaches cast upon me? it is; and, though one have no help in myself to bear my burdens, or extricate myself out of my difficulties, yet I have the testimony of a good conscience within me, that supports me; and I have the...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
To him that is afflicted pity [should be showed] from his friend,.... An "afflicted" man is an object of pity, one that is afflicted of God; either inwardly with a wounded spirit, with a sense of God's displeasure, with divine desertions, with the arrows of the Almighty sticking in him, the poison thereof drinking up his spirits; or outwardly with...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
My brethren have dealt deceitfully as a brook,.... Meaning his three friends, represented by Eliphaz, who were of the same sentiments with him, and behaved towards Job as he did: these were his brethren not by birth by blood nor by country, but by the profession of the same religion of the one true and living God in opposition to the idolatrous...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Which are blackish by reason of the ice,.... When frozen over, they look of a blackish colour, and is what is called a black frost; and these either describe Job and his domestics, as some (h) think whom Eliphaz and his two friends compared to the above streams water passed away from, or passed by and neglected, and showed no friendship to; who...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
What time they wax warm they vanish,.... The ice and the snow, which, when the weather becomes warm, they melt away and disappear; and in like manner, he suggests his friends ceased to be friends to him in a time of adversity; the sun of affliction having looked upon him, they deserted him, at least did not administer comfort to him: when it is...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
The paths of their way are turned aside,.... That is, the waters, when melted by the heat of the sun, and the warmth of the weather, run, some one way, and some another in little streams and windings, till they are quite lost and the tracks of them are no more to be seen; denoting that all appearance of friendship was quite gone, and no traces of...