11 What `is' my power that I should hope? And what mine end That I should prolong my life?
For He hath known our frame, Remembering that we `are' dust. Mortal man! as grass `are' his days, As a flower of the field so he flourisheth; For a wind hath passed over it, and it is not, And its place doth not discern it any more.
Clothed hath been my flesh `with' worms, And a clod of dust, My skin hath been shrivelled and is loathsome, My days swifter than a weaving machine, And they are consumed without hope. Remember Thou that my life `is' a breath, Mine eye turneth not back to see good.
Thou hast inundated them, they are asleep, In the morning as grass he changeth. In the morning it flourisheth, and hath changed, At evening it is cut down, and hath withered. For we were consumed in Thine anger, And in Thy fury we have been troubled. Thou hast set our iniquities before Thee, Our hidden things at the light of Thy face, For all our days pined away in Thy wrath, We consumed our years as a meditation. Days of our years, in them `are' seventy years, And if, by reason of might, eighty years, Yet `is' their enlargement labour and vanity, For it hath been cut off hastily, and we fly away.
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,