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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Job 6:14 - 6:14
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
14 To him who is consumed gentleness is due from his friend,
Otherwise he might forsake the fear of the Almighty.
15 My brothers are become false as a torrent,
As the bed of torrents which vanish away -
16 They were blackish from ice,
Snow is hidden in them -
17 In the time, when warmth cometh to them, they are destroyed.
It becometh hot, they are extinguished from their place.
Ewald supplies between Job 6:14 and Job 6:14 two lines which have professedly fallen out (“from a brother sympathy is due to the oppressed of God, in order he may not succumb to excessive grief”). Hitzig strongly characterizes this interpolation as a “pure swindle.” There is really nothing wanting; but we need not even take חֶסֶד, with Hitz., in the signification reproach (like Pro 14:34): if reproach cometh to the sufferer from his friend, he forsaketh the fear of God. מָס (from מָסַס, liquefieri) is one who is inwardly melted, the disheartened. Such an one should receive חֶסֶד from his friend, i.e., that he should restore him ἐν πνεύματι πραΰ́τητος (Gal 6:1). The waw (Job 6:14) is equivalent to alioqui with the future subjunctive (vid., Ges. §127, 5). Harshness might precipitate him into the abyss from which love will keep him back. So Schnurrer: Afflicto exhibenda est ab amico ipsius humanitas, alioqui hic reverentiam Dei exuit. Such harshness instead of charity meets him from his brothers, i.e., friends beloved as brothers. In vain he has looked to them for reviving consolation. Theirs is no comfort; it is like the dried-up water of a wady. נַחַל is a mountain or forest brook, which comes down from the height, and in spring is swollen by melting ice and the snow that thaws on the mountain-tops; χειμάῤῥους, i.e., a torrent swollen by winter water. The melting blocks of ice darken the water of such a wady, and the snow falling together is quickly hidden in its bosom (הִתְעַלֵּם). If they begin to be warmed (Pual זֹרַב, cognate to צָרַב, Eze 21:3, aduri, and שָׂרַף, comburere), suddenly they are reduced to nothing (נִצְמַת, exstingui); they vanish away בְּחֻמֹּו, when it becomes hot. The suffix is, with Ew., Olsh., and others, to be taken as neuter; not with Hirz., to be referred to a suppressed אֵת: when the season grows hot. job bewails the disappointment he has experienced, the ”decline” of charity
(Note: Oetinger says that Job 6:15-20 describe those who get ”consumption” when they are obliged to extend “the breasts of compassion” to their neighbour.)
still further, by keeping to the figure of the mountain torrent.