Is my strength the strength of stones, or is my flesh bronze?
Eliphaz has just told Job that suffering like his points to hidden sin. Job answers by pointing at his own body: he is flesh, not rock or metal, and flesh can only take so much.
The Plain Sense of the Question
Read alongside the verses on either side, the question is about endurance running out. One commentator traces the thought through the three verses:
Leslie M. GrantHe felt he had no strength even to hope for anything better on earth. He saw nothing better ahead that his life should be prolonged for (v.11). Was he as strong and hard as stone or bronze, that he could bear all his affliction with no feeling? (v.12). He could not look within himself for any help. Soundness — even sound reasoning — was almost impossible for him (v.13).
The Words in Another Rendering
Another writer renders these lines this way. He names the metal as copper, and ends with the help Job cannot find in himself:
William KellyWhat is my strength that I should wait, / And what is my end that I should be patient? / Is my strength the strength of stones? / Is my flesh copper? / Truly, is there no help at all in me, / And is my substance driven away from me?
Aimed at the Friends
Stone and metal feel nothing. They take blow after blow and are not hurt. Job is not built that way, and what hurt him was that his friends spoke as though he were:
William Kelly"Is my strength the strength of stones, or is my flesh bronze?" — to be able to endure all this without any feeling... Their lack of pity is what hurt him. Next to the great riddle of how God allowed all this to come upon him, this is what he could not explain: not one word of true pity from them. Not one word that was not very shallow, because bad judgment — misjudgment — lay underneath it.
Not Yet the Language of Faith
One writer does not treat Job's complaint as a model to copy. He sets Job's words beside others who suffered:
Samuel RidoutBut is this the language of faith — even of Old Testament faith? What of that noble army of martyrs who "were tortured, refusing to accept release… suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment… destitute, afflicted, mistreated" (Heb. 11:35–38)? Would we expect complaints like Job's from them? Paul could "take pleasure" in what fell upon him. But Job needs light, and must learn to trust God when he cannot understand Him.
What Job Could Not See
Earlier in the same chapter Job says the arrows of the Almighty are in him. One writer says he had misread who was shooting them:
C StanleyNow, it was this misapplication of truth that Satan so used in the speeches of Job's friends. Chapter 6 shows that this gave Job a terrible shaking... "For the arrows of the Almighty are in me; my spirit drinks their poison; the terrors of God are arrayed against me." This was a great mistake. They were the arrows of Satan. God was not against Job. If Job had but known it, God was for him.
Weakness Is Not the Disaster
Job looks inside himself for help and finds none. Another writer treats that discovery as the normal, healthy position of a creature:
Numerical Bible NotesGod wants us to know the experience of weakness well. It is the healthy condition of a creature, and necessary because he is a creature. As we come to know God as the One in whom "we live and move and have our being," weakness brings no distress but the opposite. Then we can be still and let Him show His might, and find refuge under the shadow of His wings.
Summary
- Flesh. Job's own answer is no. He is not stone or bronze, and he feels every blow.
- Feeling. Because he can feel, he needed pity. His friends gave him judgment instead, and that hurt most.
- Blindness. He read his wounds as arrows from God; commentators say they were Satan's, and that God was in fact for him.
- Learning. He is not held up as the pattern of faith here; he must learn to trust God at the point where he cannot understand Him.
- Rest. Finding no help in himself is not the end of a man. It is where he can be still, let God show His might, and find refuge in Him.