Job 6:20

nachal (Gen. 32:23 and elsewhere) is a mountain torrent, often dry in summer, and so often disappointing, as in Job 6:15. There are many such streams in Palestine. Its Eastern name is wady.

Job's friends were of no use whatever to him. He compares this with the desert; he knew the desert well, as they all did. Crossing the desert in winter is a very different thing from crossing the same desert in summer. In winter people do not want water so much. In the heat of summer they feel the great need of even a drop of water to cool their tongue.

Caravans turn aside out of their way, they go up into the waste, and vanish. The caravans of Tema looked, the companies of Sheba hoped for them. They were put to shame because they had trusted; they came up to it, and became red with shame.

Travellers may come, expecting water, but they find nothing. This disappoints and confuses them. So Job expressed his own confusion at the words of Eliphaz.

It is a basic principle that a sufferer's friends should show him pity. But the hard principle they were applying knew no mercy, felt no sympathy. At the time of his dire need they showed themselves utterly unfitted to be friends. Yet he had asked nothing unreasonable of them — no money, nor rescue from the enemy, only a little sympathy.

Their lack of pity 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. Every word was very superficial, because of the bad judgment, the misjudgment, that lay underneath it.

Now, it was this misapplication of truth that Satan so used in the speeches of Job's friends. "For the arrows of the Almighty are within me; their poison drinks up my spirit. The terrors of God line up against me." This was a great mistake. They were the arrows of Satan. God was not against Job. If only Job had known it, God was for him.

Paul speaks very differently: "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.

We make a most serious mistake when, in any time of need or pressure, we turn to the creature for help or sympathy. We are sure to be disappointed. Creature streams are dry. Creature-props give way. Our God will make us learn by experience the emptiness and folly of all creature-confidences, human hopes, and earthly expectations. On the other hand, He will show us, in the most moving and powerful way, the truth and blessedness of His own Word: "Those who wait for Me shall not be ashamed."