Job 6:21

For truly you have become nothing, you see a terror, and are dismayed.

They were of no use whatever to him. "The paths of their way are turned aside; they go to nothing, and perish." He compares it with the desert; he was familiar with it, as they all were. It is very different to cross the desert in winter and to cross the same desert in summer. In winter people do not need water so much. In the heat of summer they feel the great need of even a drop of water to cool their tongue. That is when the sand completely swallows up the wadis — those brooks that for a time cross the desert of despair — or the heat of the sun dries them up. Travellers who had crossed before might say, 'Ah! we hope we are nearing the water now.' Not a drop; not a drop! That is like you. Time was when I could have got comfort from you, but now everything is changed. You have nothing now but an evil lurking suspicion that has no foundation at all.

A sufferer's friends should show him pity. This is a basic principle. Otherwise, under the stress of trial — as some have rendered it — "he should forsake the fear of the Almighty."… 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. The "brother born for adversity" they are not. These "brothers" are like a summer stream, swollen by melting snow and ice in winter, which gives promise of a lasting supply for the thirsty; but when the crowds of travellers come, they find only the dry stones to mock them.

Yes, that was their state; they were shocked; they did not even want to get near him. They did not wish to have even the sense of the poor sufferer's foul breath, or to touch his skin, for fear of catching something themselves. They kept away from it; they were afraid.

Job asks, "Did I ever say, 'Bring something to me?'" (v.22). Job had not even asked his three friends to come, let alone asked them for some benefit from their hands. Why did they then accuse him when all he needed was a little sympathy?

Now, 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 within me; their poison drinks up my spirit. The terrors of God set themselves in array against me." 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.

As things now stood, Job might say of them, "Lover and friend You have put far from me." And when these failed, he could not add, "You are with me." How differently Paul speaks: "At my first defence no one came to stand by me, but all deserted me… But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me" (2 Tim. 4:16-17). Let us learn from Job's failure not to put the dearest earthly friend between us and God.