HONEST WORDS

“How painful are honest words!  But what do your arguments prove?” (6:25)

Where Eliphaz has been evasive in his accusations, Job is forthright, and Chapter 6 ends with a blunt, staccato summary—as plainly stated as a court indictment—of Job’s precise complaints against the attitude and arguments of his friends.

First of all, he accuses them of “treating the words of a despairing man as wind” (6:26). What a terrible sin those commit who turn a deaf ear to the dejected, and who even dare to heap scorn on legitimate suffering. This is what the crowd did to blind Bartimaeus as he crouched by the roadside crying out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” (Mark 10:47-48). People told Bartimaeus to shut up, and the same thing happens today in many a church, where for one of a thousand expedient and doctrinally-justified reasons, the brokenhearted are silenced.

Job’s next criticism of his friends goes so far as to hint prophetically at the most heinous of all the sins recorded in the Bible—the betrayal of Christ by Judas Iscariot. For Job says, “You would even . . . barter away your friend!” (6:27). Job’s friends are his church, his community of faith; they are the people who should be supporting him and holding him up in prayer. But instead, Job says, they are betraying him. How often does it happen today that the earnest Christian finds his deepest struggle to be less with the world than it is with his own church? This is not a situation to be lightly or easily diagnosed. But sometimes it can be vital for a victim of institutionalized religion to grasp that his problems may not be his own fault, that he is not just an ornery and paranoid shadow-boxer. No, as in Job’s case the issues that divide him from his own spiritual community may be quite valid and real, and like Job he may be fighting for his life against the very people with whom he is supposed to be in fellowship.

Having delivered this searing rebuke, Job’s tone suddenly softens to a gentler plea as he says simply, “Now be so kind as to look at me” (6:28). In this play for voices it is fascinating to note the stage directions latent in the script. Here it appears that throughout Job’s speech the friends have been hanging their heads and refusing to meet his gaze, while in an odd reversal of roles the sick man now holds his head high and looks his sleek and healthy inquisitors straight in the eye. Is this not just the sort of poignant moment that can occur in a real argument? Suddenly the one who is in the wrong feels compelled to avert the eyes, while the one who is right has the freedom to regard the other fearlessly.

Next, Job pleads with his friends to “reconsider, for my integrity is at stake” (6:29). Does Eliphaz really understand the seriousness of the insinuations he has been making? In Job’s vocabulary the word “integrity” is almost interchangeable with “righteousness” (see 27:5). So Job’s point is that Eliphaz has impugned not only his character but, by implication, the very genuineness of his faith. In today’s terms it is as though one Christian were to say to another Christian in difficulty, “Friend, the reason for all of your problems must be that you are not really a Christian.” While Eliphaz might not dare (at least at this early stage in the dialogue) to express himself quite so bluntly, Job is suggesting that this is what his charges actually amount to.

Accordingly, in the last verse of the chapter Job submits his faith to a virtual lie detector test when he challenges, “Is there any wickedness on my lips? Can my mouth not discern malice?” (6:30). These rhetorical questions have all the force of swearing on a stack of Bibles. Job is arguing that the mere word of a righteous man is fully admissible as evidence of his innocence because, as Jesus taught, “Out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45). Granted, the last word of all belongs to God, but if a person really is righteous, then God stands wholly behind him.

With this line of defense Job pinpoints and clarifies the nub of the debate. Either he is a righteous man, with God on his side, or he is not. Either his faith is the real thing or it is not.

Mason, M. (2002). The Gospel According to Job: An Honest Look at Pain and Doubt from the Life of One Who Lost Everything. Crossway.