Have I any help in me, when resource is driven from me?
Job is answering his friends, and in this verse he stops arguing long enough to take stock of what he has left. He looks inside for something to draw on in terrible pain, and finds nothing there.
The words: no reserves left
Job has been asking what strength he has left. One commentator walks through the run-up to this verse and then gives its answer.
Leslie M. GrantHe felt he had no strength even to hope for anything better on earth, and no prospect worth staying alive for. Was he as strong and hard as stone or bronze, so that he could bear all his affliction and feel nothing? He could not look inside himself for any help, and soundness — even sound reasoning — was almost impossible for him.
The second half of the verse is rendered in different ways. Where the ESV reads "when resource is driven from me," another rendering closes Job's speech on his own strength like this:
William KellyTruly is not the nothingness of help with me, and substance driven away from me?
The plea his friends ignored
This verse closes a section of Job's reply. He turns his weakness outward, into an appeal to his friends.
Samuel RidoutThis part closes with a pitiful plea of his utter weakness and helplessness. It should move the heart of his friends.
The wound the friends made worse
Their silence about his pain hurt Job as much as the pain itself. Read alongside the verse that follows, his emptiness becomes an accusation.
William KellyA man in trouble should get pity from his friend. That they should be so lacking in pity — that is what galled him. Next to the great riddle of how God allowed all this to come upon him, this was the thing he could not explain. There was not one word of true pity from them. Every word they spoke was shallow, because bad judgment — misjudgment — lay underneath it.
Empty of strength, still full of self
Job's confession of weakness sits beside a settled claim that he is in the right. Both are in the same speech, and the mix is telling.
Samuel RidoutJob's claim to be upright is true. It was the fruit of God's grace in him. But he is using this righteousness in a self-righteous way, to justify himself at the expense of God's righteousness. He keeps on this course and grows bolder in it. His friends have no answer for it, but God will vindicate Himself.
Job traces his suffering back to God. One writer says he was right in that, then shows where he went wrong.
William KellyJob did not blame the raiders from Sheba, the Chaldeans, the lightning, the storm, or the disease. He looked far beyond these second-hand causes. He was right to bring God into the trouble. But he was wrong in two ways, as we find at the end. He thought there was nothing in his soul to correct. And he thought God could be something other than gracious while faithful, and patient while righteous. He also left out the power of evil and of Satan, which God permits but limits. He did not hold on, as he should have, to the truth that God lets His own suffer in a special way in this world out of love for them.
The lesson he still had to learn
Others have suffered badly without talking as Job does here. One writer sets him beside them.
Samuel RidoutIs this the language of faith? Think of the martyrs who were tortured, mocked, whipped and imprisoned. Would we expect to hear from them the complaints that fall from Job's lips? Paul could take pleasure in what fell upon him. But Job needs light, and must learn to trust God when he cannot understand Him.
Why God let him run dry
Job's emptiness is not wasted. One writer traces where it leads by the close of the book.
Samuel RidoutThink of it: the best man on earth repenting, the best man on earth loathing himself and coming to the end of himself. Then you find God for him. That is the secret of our deliverance as well as Job's. First you learn what you are. You learn what your good self is as well as your bad self. You learn to put no confidence in yourself. Then God can come in. He turns all Satan's attacks, and everything you have found out about yourself, humbling as it is, into blessing for you.
Summary
- Empty. Job looks inside for help and finds none — no strength to endure, no clear thinking left to steady him.
- Ignored. He turns that emptiness toward his friends as a plea for pity. Their coldness galls him almost as much as the suffering.
- Exposed. The same speech admits total weakness and still defends his own record. He is right that God is behind his trouble. He is wrong that nothing in him needs correcting.
- Untaught. He has not yet learned to trust God where he cannot understand Him, and that is the light he still lacks.
- Emptied for a purpose. Coming to the end of himself is where God is taking him. Only there does God step in and turn the whole ordeal into blessing.