Hiob 6:1

1 Then began Job, and said: 2 Oh that my vexation were but weighed, And they would put my suffering in the balance against it! 3 Then it would be heavier than the sand of the sea: Therefore my words are rash. 4 The arrows of the Almighty are in me, The burning poison whereof drinketh up my spirit; The terrors of Eloah set themselves in array against me. Vexation (כּעשׂ) is what Eliphaz has reproached him with (Job 5:2). Job wishes that his vexation were placed in one scale and his היּה (Keri הוּה) in the other, and weighed together (יחד). The noun היּה (הוּה), from הוה (היה), flare, hiare, signifies properly hiatus, then vorago, a yawning gulf, χάσμα, then some dreadful calamity (vid., Hupfeld on Psa 5:10). נשׂא, like נטל, Isa 11:15, to raise the balance, as pendere, to let it hang down; attollant instead of the passive. This is his desire; and if they but understood the matter, it would then be manifest (כּי־עתּה, as Job 3:13, which see), or: indeed then would it be manifest (כּי certainly in this inferential position has an affirmative signification: vid., Gen 26:22; Gen 29:32, and comp. Sa1 25:34; Sa2 2:27) that his suffering is heavier than the unmeasurable weight of the sand of the sea. יכבּד is neuter with reference to והיּתי. לעוּ, with the tone on the penult., which is not to be accounted for by the rhythm as in Psa 37:20; Psa 137:7, cannot be derived from לעה, but only from לוּע, not however in the signification to suck down, but from לוּע = לעה, Arab. lagiya or also lagâ, temere loqui, inania effutire, - a signification which suits excellently here. (Note: ילע, Pro 20:25, which is doubly accented, and must be pronounced as oxytone, has also this meaning: the snare of a man who has thoughtlessly uttered what is holy (an interjectional clause = such an one has…

Eliphaz, in the beginning of his discourse, had been very sharp upon Job, and yet it does not appear that Job gave him any interruption, but heard him patiently till he had said all he had to say. Those that would make an impartial judgment of a discourse must hear it out, and take it entire. But, when he had concluded, he makes his reply, in which he speaks very feelingly. I. He represents his calamity, in general, as much heavier than either he had expressed it or they had apprehended it, Job 6:2, Job 6:3. He could not fully describe it; they would not fully apprehend it, or at least would not own that they did; and therefore he would gladly appeal to a third person, who had just weights and just balances with which to weigh his grief and calamity, and would do it with an impartial hand. He wished that they would set his grief and all the expressions of it in one scale, his calamity and all the particulars of it in the other, and (though he would not altogether justify himself in his grief) they would find (as he says, Job 23:2) that his stroke was heavier than his groaning; for, whatever his grief was, his calamity was heavier than the sand of the sea: it was complicated, it was aggravated, every grievance weighty, and all together numerous as the sand. "Therefore (says he) my words are swallowed up;" that is, "Therefore you must excuse both the brokenness and the bitterness of my expressions. Do not think it strange if my speech be not so fine and polite as that of an eloquent orator, or so grave and regular as that of a morose philosopher: no, in these circumstances I can pretend neither to the one nor to the other; my words are, as I am, quite swallowed up." Now, 1. He hereby complains of it as his unhappiness that his friends undertook to administer spiritual phy…

6:1–7:21 Job’s response attacks his counselors (ch 6) and challenges God (ch 7). He excuses his passionate words by referencing the depths of his misery (6:2-3; 7:11). Job says that Eliphaz has failed to offer comfort or sympathy as a friend, having chosen instead to haggle over stale theological precepts.