Job 6:22

"Is my strength the strength of stones, or is my flesh bronze?" — to be able to endure all this without any feeling. That they should be so lacking in pity — that was what stung 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. Not one word that was not very shallow, because of the bad judgment, the misjudgment, underneath it.

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

They were shocked; they did not even want to get near him. They did not want to smell the foul breath of the poor sufferer, or to touch his skin for fear of catching something bad themselves. They kept away; they were afraid. "Have I said, 'Make me a gift'? Or, 'From your wealth offer a bribe for me'?" He says, "It is not that I need anything at all. Yet you are treating me as if I wanted to draw on you in my trouble. No, I ask nothing of you except that you should not misjudge me."

Eliphaz had spoken of what he had seen and experienced. Job now asks them to apply a true test to his own case. Let them prove, by their rigid rule of "punishment for sin," that he is the sinner. Theories are all very well in their place, but if they rest on false premises they completely fail. "How forceful are upright words!" Let them teach him according to truth, and he will be silent. But what is all their arguing worth? They are taking his poor, rash, desperate speeches, forced out of him by the desperation of his sufferings, and treating them as the carefully weighed statements of a man putting forward some philosophic principle. Why could they not make allowance for the anguish that wrings such empty words out of him? They were treating him with the same unfeeling spirit that marks people who would rob orphans. A little later it will be seen that they speak exactly as Job here accuses them; he is only anticipating their full meaning.

Eliphaz might use grand words about the greatness and faithfulness of God, but what about himself? Was he acting the part of a true friend? ... Paul speaks very differently: "At my first defense 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.