27 Yea, ye overwhelm the fatherless, and dig [a pit] for your friend.
And through covetousness, with well-turned words, will they make merchandise of you: for whom judgment of old is not idle, and their destruction slumbers not.
Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, to keep oneself unspotted from the world.
and they have cast lots for my people, and have given a boy for a harlot, and sold a girl for wine, and have drunk [it].
He digged a pit, and hollowed it out, and is fallen into the hole that he made.
They drive away the ass of the fatherless, they take the widow's ox for a pledge;
Widows hast thou sent empty away, and the arms of the fatherless have been broken.
And I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against the false swearers, and against those that oppress the hired servant in [his] wages, the widow and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger [from his right], and fear not me, saith Jehovah of hosts.
Ye shall not afflict any widow or fatherless child. If thou afflict him in any way, if he cry at all unto me, I will certainly hear his cry; and my anger shall burn, and I will slay you with the sword; and your wives shall be widows, and your children fatherless.
Shall evil be recompensed for good? For they have digged a pit for my soul. Remember how I stood before thee to speak good for them, to turn away thy wrath from them.
Remove not the ancient landmark; and enter not into the fields of the fatherless: for their redeemer is mighty; he will plead their cause against thee.
They have prepared a net for my steps; my soul was bowed down: they have digged a pit before me; they are fallen into the midst thereof. Selah.
If I have lifted up my hand against an orphan, because I saw my help in the gate:
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Job 6
Commentary on Job 6 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 6
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.
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.
Job 6:1-7
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.
Job 6:8-13
Ungoverned passion often grows more violent when it meets with some rebuke and check. The troubled sea rages most when it dashes against a rock. Job had been courting death, as that which would be the happy period of his miseries, ch. 3. For this Eliphaz had gravely reproved him, but he, instead of unsaying what he had said, says it here again with more vehemence than before; and it is as ill said as almost any thing we meet with in all his discourses, and is recorded for our admonition, not our imitation.
Job 6:14-21
Eliphaz had been very severe in his censures of Job; and his companions, though as yet they had said little, yet had intimated their concurrence with him. Their unkindness therein poor Job here complains of, as an aggravation of his calamity and a further excuse of his desire to die; for what satisfaction could he ever expect in this world when those that should have been his comforters thus proved his tormentors?
Job 6:22-30
Poor Job goes on here to upbraid his friends with their unkindness and the hard usage they gave him. He here appeals to themselves concerning several things which tended both to justify him and to condemn them. If they would but think impartially, and speak as they thought, they could not but own,