Job 6:25

If they had something true and useful to teach him, Job would gladly keep quiet and listen. If he had erred as they supposed, why did they not tell him in what way he had erred (v.24). Right words would have been forceful and effective, but their arguments proved nothing (v.25). They rebuked words that came out of his desperation. They gave no thought to the depth of his suffering (v.26).

How forcible are right words (Job 6:25) — the right word, at the right time, delivered in the right spirit, that is, a word coming from His presence. Sadly we often feel, minutes after a conversation, that if only I had had this right word — the word that now comes to mind — I could have met that situation!

At verse 24 a more direct appeal begins. He challenged his friends to leave vague insinuations for direct accusation. Let them show where he had erred, so that, taught by them, he might hold his tongue. He rightly remarked, "How forcible are right words," but what did Eliphaz's "arguing," or "upbraiding," achieve? How often, among fellow Christians, have vague insinuations or even accusations done great damage! "Right words," based on specific facts, would have proved forceful and done good.

Let them prove, according to their rigid rule of "punishment for sin," that he is the sinner. Theories are all very well in their place, but if based on false premises they utterly fail. "How forcible are right words!" Let them teach him according to truth, and he will be silent; but of what value is all their arguing? They are taking his poor, rash, desperate speeches, forced out of him by the desperation of his sufferings. They treat them as if they were the well-considered statements of a man setting out some philosophical principle.

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; the poison of which 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 but known it, God was for him.

"Return, I pray you, let it not be iniquity" — he begs them to come back to a sound judgment of the case. Their poor friend had been put to a tremendous trial, and he could not see why it had come upon him… He had to learn that his own righteousness, however real, could be no ground. He must have the righteousness of God to stand upon, though he hardly knew how that could be. That is what comes out later in the book.