“He who withholds kindness from a friend forsakes the fear of the Almighty.
Job has been answering Eliphaz, and here he turns from God to the friends sitting with him. His verdict is short: a person crushed by trouble has a claim on his friends, and to refuse that claim is a failure not of manners but of the fear of God.
The wound that hurt most
What stung Job most was not the loss of his property or his health. It was the coldness of the men who came to comfort him.
William KellyThat 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 what he could not explain: there was not one word of true pity. Not one word that was not very shallow, because of the bad judgment, the misjudgment that was underneath it.
The little he asked for
Job asked for nothing costly. That is what makes the refusal so sharp.
Samuel RidoutBut the hard principle they were applying knew no mercy, felt no sympathy. At the time of his dire need they showed themselves utterly unfit to be friends. They are not the "brother born for adversity." These "brothers" are like a summer stream, swollen by melting snow and ice in winter. It promises a steady supply for the thirsty. But when the troops of travellers come, they find only the dry stones to mock them. Yet he had asked nothing unreasonable from them — no money, no rescue from the enemy, only a little sympathy.
Who forsakes the fear of the Almighty?
Commentators read the second half of the verse in two ways. One reading points at the sufferer. Kindness is due even to a man who has slipped away from God. Kelly translates the line this way:
William KellyTo the despairing there is gentleness from his friends, even to one forsaking the face of the Almighty.
Leslie Grant reads it the same way and shows why it matters here:
Leslie M. GrantIn verse 14 Job rightly protests that friends ought to show kindness to someone who is afflicted, even if that person had gone so far as to "forsake the fear of the Almighty." Job had not done so, but Eliphaz suspected he was on the verge of it.
Cruelty as a religious failure
The other reading, which the ESV follows, turns the charge back on the friends. To withhold kindness is itself to abandon the fear of God.
F. B. HoleHe was the afflicted one. His friends should have shown him pity, if they wanted to walk in the fear of God. Instead, they were beginning to deal deceitfully with him.
Discipline is not a licence to criticise
The friends reasoned backwards from Job's condition to Job's character. That logic is still common, and it is still wrong.
J. G. BellettWe deceive ourselves if we think 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 commonly, perhaps, in God's mind, and act as living vessels of the Spirit, when we soothe such people. And I am sure it was so in Job's case. Had his former friends known God's way, they would have dealt very differently with him. They would not have left him. "The hand of God" had touched him, as he so strongly puts it. That fact alone should have drawn "pity" from his friends, as he goes on to say.
When the human friend fails
Ridout draws the contrast with Paul, who was also deserted and yet not alone:
Samuel RidoutHow differently Paul speaks: "At my first defence no one came to stand by me, but all deserted me… But the Lord stood by me" (2 Tim. 4:16-17). Let us learn from Job's failure not to put the dearest earthly friend between us and God.
Ridout also points the sufferer somewhere better than a friend:
Samuel RidoutHow incomplete is the sympathy of the dearest friend you may have! There are experiences, a sense of weakness, needs you are ashamed to speak of. Or you see how useless it is to tell your dearest friend on earth about them. How blessed it is to know that there is not an atom of experience we may have that is beneath the notice of our blessed High Priest!
Summary
- Owed, not earned. Kindness to a sufferer is a debt of friendship — Job asked for no money and no rescue, only a little sympathy — and even that his friends refused.
- Owed even to the failing. On one reading, gentleness is due even to a person who has drifted from God. Commentators differ on whether the verse describes the sufferer or the hard-hearted friend.
- Owed as worship. On the other reading, refusing kindness is itself abandoning the fear of the Almighty — cruelty is not a lapse of manners but of religion.
- Owed most when God's hand is heavy. If God is disciplining someone, that is no licence for you to add to the pain. His hand on a person calls for pity, not accusation.
- Owed, but never enough. Job's friends dried up like a winter stream. Do not place any friend between yourself and God. No part of what you go through is too small for our High Priest to notice.