Hiob 6:2 Kommentar

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 in his complaints and condemns him for the weakness of his arguing. I. He shows that he had just cause to complain as he did of his troubles, and so it would appear to any impartial judge (Job 6:2-7). II. He continues his passionate wish that he might speedily be cut off by the stroke of death, and so be eased of all his miseries (Job 6:8-13). III. He reproves his friends for their uncharitable censures of him and their unkind treatment (v. 14-30). It must be owned that Job, in all this, spoke much that was reasonable, but with a mixture of passion and human infirmity. And in this contest, as indeed in most contests, there was fault on both sides.

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 reason why they were so heavy is given, they being the arrows and terrors of the Almighty, Job 6:4; and by various similes he shows that his moans and complaints under them need not seem strange and unreasonable, Job 6:5; and what had been said not being convincing to him, he continues in the same sentiment and disposition of mind, and wishes to be removed by death out of his miserable condition, and gives his reasons for it, Job 6:8; and though his case was such as required pity from his friends, yet this he had not from them, but represents them as deceitful, and as having sadly disappointed him, and therefore he neither hoped nor asked for anything of them, Job 6:14; and observes that their words and arguments were of no force and weight with him, but harmful and pernicious, Job 6:24; and in his turn gives them some exhortations and instructions, and signifies that he was as capable of discerning between right and wrong as they, with which this chapter is concluded, Job 6:28.

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 the same thing, his affliction; which either, as he understood, was the fruit and effect of the wrath and anger of God, who treated him as an enemy; or rather, that wrath, anger, and resentment raised in his own mind by those afflictive providences, and which broke out in hot and passionate expressions, and for which he was blamed as a foolish man, Job 5:2; or else the "complaint" (x), the groans and moans he made under them; or the "impatience" (y) he was charged with in bearing of them; and now he wishes, and suggests, that if they were well weighed and considered by kind and judicious persons, men of moderation and temper, a great allowance would be made for them, and they would easily be excused; that is, if, together with his expressions of grief, anger, and impatience, his great afflictions, the cause of them, were but looked into, and carefully examined, as follows: and my calamity laid in the balances together! that is, his affliction, which had a being, as the word signifies, as Aben Ezra observes, was not through the prepossessions of fear as before, nor merely in fancy as in many, or as exaggerated, and made greater than it is, which is often the case; but what was real and true, and matter of fact; it was what befell him, had happened to him, not by chance, but by the appointment and providence of God; and includes all his misfortunes, the loss of his cattle, servants, and children, and of his own health; and now to be added to them, the unkindness of his friends; and his desire is, that these might be taken up, and put together in the scales, and being put there, that the balances might be lifted up at once, and the true weight of them taken; and the meaning is, either that all his excessive grief, and passionate words, and extravagant and unwarrantable impatience, as they were judged, might be put into one scale, and all his afflictions in another, and then it would be seen which were heaviest, and what reason there was for the former, and what little reason there was to blame him on that account; or however, he might be excused, and not be bore hard upon, as he was; to this sense his words incline in Job 23:2; or else by his grief and calamity he means the same thing, his grievous afflictions, which he would have put together in a pair of balances, and weighed against anything that was ever so heavy, and then they would appear to be as is expressed in Job 6:3; Job by all this seems desirous to have his case thoroughly canvassed, and his conduct thoroughly examined into, and to be well weighed and pondered in the scale of right reason and sound judgment, by men of equal and impartial characters; but he tacitly suggests that his friends were not such, and therefore wishes that some third person, or other persons, would undertake this affair. (u) "librando, libraretur", Cocceius, Schultens. (w) "ira mea", Pagninus, Montanus, Drusius, Schmidt, &c. so the Targum and Sept. (x) "Querela mea", Vatablus, Mercerus. (y) "Impatientia", Belgae, Castalio.

This is what Job means, you show wisdom in the misfortunes of other people. Since you are far away from my misfortunes, you admonish me while you experience a peaceful life. This remark is an answer to the words that were said earlier, “You have instructed many.” “You have strengthened the feeble knees.” “But now misfortune has come to you, and you are impatient; it touches you, and you are dismayed.” Why does he say, “You are dismayed”? I wanted my affliction to become evident, so you would understand that nobody has ever suffered such tribulations. But I perceive my bad luck. He who should have provided me with forgiveness makes me absolutely unforgivable. My misfortune’s magnitude, he says, not only doesn’t intercede for me, not only makes me seem unworthy of mercy, but condemns me. What should have obtained mercy for me instead makes me hateful and condemnable, and I cannot gain any mercy, in spite of what I say. And the proof is that Eliphaz imputed Job’s misfortune to impiety.

Some men's minds are more tormented by scourges than reproaches, but some are more wounded by reproaches than by scourges. For oftentimes the tortures of speech assail us worse than any pains, and while they make us rise up in our vindication, they lay us low in impatience. Whence, that no temptation whatever might be lacking to blessed Job, not only scourges strike him from above, but the sayings of his friends in talk gall him, being sorer than scourges, that the soul of the holy man, being driven hither and thither, might, burst forth in the emotion of wrath and haughtiness, and that all the purity he had lived in might be defiled by head-strong pride of speech. But when touched by the scourges, he gave thanks, when galled with words, he answered aright, and being smitten he makes it appear how little he esteemed the well-being of the body. In speaking too he shews how, wisely he held his peace. But there were a few things mixed with his words, which, in the judgment of men, might seem to transgress the limits of patience; of which we shall take a true view, if in the examination of them we weigh well the sentence of the Most High Judge. For it was He, Who both in the first instance gave blessed Job the first place in opposition to the adversary, saying, Hast thou considered My servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God and escheweth evil? It was He, Who after the trial rebuked his friends, saying, For ye have not spoken before Me the thing that is right, as My servant Job hath. It remains then, that when the mind wavers with uncertainty in the discoursings of blessed Job, it estimate their weight from the beginning, and ending of that same account. For one who was to fall could never have been commended by the Eternal Judge, nor could one who had fallen be awarded the first place. If then, when we be caught in the tempest of embarrasment, we have regard to the first and last points in this history, the vessel of the soul is as it were held fast at prow and stern by the rope of its reflections, that it be not forced on the rocks of error, and so we are not overwhelmed by any storms arising from our ignorance, if we hold to the tranquil shore of the sentence of the Most High. Oh that my sins were throughly weighed, whereby I have deserted wrath, and the calamity that I suffer laid in the balances. It should be found heavier even as the sand of the sea. Who else is set forth by the title of 'the balances,' but the Mediator between God and man, Who came to weigh the merit of our life, and brought down with Him both justice and loving-kindness together? But putting the greater weight in the scale of mercy, He lightened our transgressions in pardoning them. For in the hand of the Father having been made like scales of a marvellous balancing, in the one scale He hung our woe in His own Person, and in the other our sins. Now by dying He proved the woe to be of heavy weight, and by releasing it shewed the sin to be light in mercy's scale, Who vouchsafed this instance of grace first, that He made our punishment to be known to us. For man, being created for the contemplation of his Maker, but banished from the interior joys in justice to his deserts, gone headlong into the wofulness of a corrupt condition, undergoing the darkness of his exile, was at once subject to the punishment of his sin, and knew it not; so that he imagined his place of exile to be his home, and so rejoiced under the weight of his corrupt condition as in the liberty of a state of salvation. But He Whom man had forsaken within, having assumed a fleshly nature, came forth God without; and when He presented Himself outwardly, He restored man, who was cast forth without, to the interior life, that He might henceforth perceive his losses, that he might henceforth lament the sorrows of his blind state. Man's woe then was found to be heavy in the balance, in that the ill, which he was laid under, he only knew in his Redeemer's appearing presence. For not knowing the right, he bore with delight the darkness of his state of condemnation. But after he saw a thing for him to delight in, he likewise perceived a thing to grieve over, and what he underwent he felt was grievous, in that what he had lost was made known as sweet. Let then the holy man, thrown out of the barriers of silence by the sayings of his friend in discourse, and filled with the overflowing of the prophetic spirit, exclaim with his own voice, yea, with the voice of mankind, Oh that my sins were thoroughly weighed, whereby I have deserved wrath, and the calamity that I suffer laid in the balances together! It should be found heavier even as the sand of the sea. As if it were in plain words, 'The evil of our condition under the curse is thought light, in that it is weighed without the Redeemer's equity being as yet known, but oh that He would come, and hang in the scale of His Mercy the wofulness of this dismal exile, and instruct us what to seek back for after that exile. For if He makes known what we have lost, He shews that to be grievous which we endure.' But this same misery of our pilgrimage is fitly compared to the sand of the sea, (for the sand of the sea is forced without by the chafing of the waters,) in that man too in transgressing, because he bore the billows of temptation unsteadily, was carried out of himself from within. Now of great weight is the sand of the sea, but the calamity of man is said to be 'heavier than the sand of the sea,' for his punishment is shewn to have been hard, at the time when the sin is lightened by the merciful Judge. And because every man that owns the grace of the Redeemer, everyone that longs for a return to his Country, now that he is instructed, groans beneath the burthen of his pilgrimage; after the longing for the balances, the words are rightly subjoined; Therefore my words are full of grief. He that loves sojourn abroad instead of his own country, knows not how to grieve even in the midst of griefs. But the words of the righteous man are full of grief, for so long as he is subject to present ills, he sighs after something else in his speech; all that he brought upon himself by sinning is set before his eyes, and that he may return to the state of blessedness, he weighs carefully the judgments whereby he is afflicted.

Eliphaz had clearly noted in earlier verses three things in the lament of Job: despair because he seemed to desire not to exist; impatience or immoderate sorrow because of the sighs and moans which he said he was enduring; and presumption because he asserted his innocence. The whole discourse of Eliphaz in the previous chapters was about these three things. In his discourse he proposed for consideration the frailty of the human condition among other things to demonstrate that Job was subject to sin and should have accepted his misfortunes. Job takes the beginning of his response from this point. For it is certain that because of the frailty of the human condition, no man is free from sin however just he may appear to be. Nevertheless, in just men sins are not grave and mortal sins but trivial and venial sins which occur as a result of negligence and deception. If what Eliphaz strives to prove were true, i.e. the adversities of this present life were the proper punishments for sin, it would follow that men would suffer grave adversities because of grave sins and light adversities for light sins. Thus just men would never be subject to grave adversities, which is clearly false. Job proposes this argument, then, against the scientific discussion of Eliphaz and so the text continues, "Then Job answered saying: Would that my sins for which I have merited anger and the calamity which I suffer were weighed in a balance," as if to say: I cannot say that there are no sins in me, yet I am confident that there is no mortal sin in me, but venial sins. If then I merited this sort of anger from God, as punishment for such sins, my calamity and my sin should be weighed in the scale of justice so that one can correspond to the other according to the measure of equality.

The vanity of riches without use, Ecc 6:1, Ecc 6:2. Of children and of old age without riches and enjoyment, Ecc 6:3-7. Man does not know what is good for himself, Ecc 6:8-12.

O that my grief were thoroughly weighed - Job wished to be dealt with according to justice; as he was willing that his sins, if they could be proved, should be weighed against his sufferings; and if this could not be done, he wished that his sufferings and his complainings might be weighed together; and it would then be seen that, bitter as his complaint had been, it was little when compared with the distress which occasioned it.

REPLY OF JOB TO ELIPHAZ. (Job 6:1-30) throughly weighed--Oh, that instead of censuring my complaints when thou oughtest rather to have sympathized with me, thou wouldst accurately compare my sorrow, and my misfortunes; these latter "outweigh in the balance" the former.