My relatives have failed me, my close friends have forgotten me.
Answering Bildad, Job names one group after another that has walked away from him — from his brothers down to the servants in his own house. This verse sits in the middle of that list, and it raises a hard question: who was behind the desertion?
A Circle That Keeps Narrowing
The list is not random. Each group Job names is closer to him than the last. One commentator marks the point where the circle tightens:
William Kelly"He has put my brothers far from me, and my acquaintances are completely estranged from me." You know what that is to the heart if you have ever tasted it. "My relatives have failed me, my close friends" — he now gets closer — "have forgotten me." "Those who dwell in my house, and my maids, count me a stranger: I am an alien in their sight."
Blame in the Wrong Place
Job saw God's hand behind every person who left him. One commentator says he read it wrong:
Leslie M. GrantJob counted them as God's troops come together, "building roads" against him. Of course Job's surmise was wrong. God did not move these people against him, though no doubt Satan did so. Job's brothers had removed themselves from him, and Job blamed God for this. His acquaintances, relatives and close friends had distanced themselves from him.
William Kelly agrees that God allowed all of it, but marks where Job went too far:
William KellyIt is perfectly true that it must have been God allowing all this... "He has also kindled His wrath against me" — there he was wrong.
Loss With Nothing Left to Lean On
The desertion runs right through the house, and it lands on a man whose body is rotting away:
Samuel RidoutHis own brothers have forsaken him; relatives have forgotten him. His own slaves look at him as a stranger. He has to beg his own servant again and again before the man will answer. Worst of all, the wife of his heart recoils from the foul smell of his body. Boys mock him, friends detest him... It is a dreadful picture of a horrible disease. It is sad beyond words when we remember that he could not turn to God for comfort.
The Fault of the Deserters
Job may have misread God's part in this. The people who left him had no excuse, and they come back to him only at the very end:
J. G. BellettHis relatives and acquaintances, at the end, seek him again. They ought, indeed, never to have deserted him. For we deceive ourselves if we think that we must be right when we grieve those whom God is disciplining. This is often very far indeed from being the case... We are more often, perhaps, in God's mind, and acting as living vessels of the Spirit, when we are soothing such people... The very fact that God's hand had touched him, as he puts it so deeply, would have been the reason for pity from his friends.
Faith in the Empty Place
Eleven verses later Job makes his great confession. This verse shows the ground he was standing on when he said it:
William Kelly"For I know that my Redeemer lives." Here we come to the very clear confession of his faith. It was beautiful too that he said this at such a time. He was in the deepest desolation and distress. Not one friend was left to him among men, and God Himself was striking him. In his circumstances, how like Christ he was, up to a point! How unlike Him in steadily acknowledging God's holiness, free from hardness and free from complaining! Still, here we have a blessed confession, and all the more so because of the gloom, pain, and desertion in which he spoke it.
Summary
- Closer and closer. Job names the losses in order of nearness: brothers, then acquaintances, then relatives, then his closest friends. Each step hurts more than the last.
- Wrongly traced. Job read every departure as God sending troops against him. Commentators say he was wrong. God allowed the trouble, but the people left on their own, and Satan was behind it.
- Nothing left. His household, his servants and even his wife pull away from him. Worst of all, he could not turn to God for comfort either.
- Wrongly given. Grieving a person God is disciplining does not prove you are right. God's hand on a sufferer is a reason to pity him, not to leave him.
- Still a Redeemer. Job had no friend left, and God seemed to be striking him. From that empty place he says he knows his Redeemer lives. The gloom is what makes the words shine.