Job 6:2

Eliphaz had reproached Job for giving in to despair. But Job asks him only to weigh his misery. It would be found as heavy as the sand of the sea — an image used elsewhere for great numbers. That is why his words are "rash" — which is probably the better translation. Who can hold back hasty words when the arrows of the Almighty pierce him and His terrors hang over him?

"Oh that my vexation were weighed" — that is exactly where they were wrong. They only looked at the surface — "and all my calamity laid in the balances!" No, they had no proper balances. They were all one-sided.

He knew Eliphaz had not weighed Job's grief properly. If he had, he would have had more compassion for the poor sufferer (vv.2-3). Job says, "Therefore my words have been rash." He had spoken as a man in deepest anguish. So he had concluded that God was not just in allowing such suffering to an upright man. Of course it is rash to say such a thing, but his friends should have seen that his condition all but forced the wrong words out of his mouth. Could they not make some allowance for this?

Job's piety made him admit that God not only must be, but was, involved in all these calamities; and he was right so far. Job did not lay the blame on the men of Sheba or the Chaldeans, the lightning, the hurricane, or the disease, but looked far beyond the secondary instruments. He was right to bring God into the trouble. But he was wrong, as we shall find at the end. He supposed either that there was nothing in his soul to correct, or that God could be anything other to him than gracious while faithful, and patient while righteous.

Here we have the part of his suffering that was probably worse than the physical side. What gave his grief its sharp edge was the sense that God's wrath was on him. He felt the dreadful poison of His anger consuming him. We know this was a mistake. God was chastening His poor servant, and that was another proof of His love. But he did not know it, and we should not be harsh with one who felt that the Lord was dealing bitterly with him.

Satan used this misuse of truth in the speeches of Job's friends. Chapter 6 shows that it gave Job a terrible shaking… He felt the arrows of the Almighty inside him, their poison drinking up his spirit, and the terrors of God lined up against him. This was a great mistake. They were the arrows of Satan. God was not against Job. If Job had only known it, God was for him.

So Job is now (Job 6, Job 7) taken up not so much with his misery as with his right to complain and answer back the suggestions of his friend. He is taken up with defending himself. At the same time he is only more convinced that his days are empty. What lessons of anguish one has to learn before one sees the wisdom of giving up self! How the soul is tormented by one suggestion after another. These could never reach or trouble it except for the amount of self that is there.