"You are looking chipper again, Job. I really appreciate your willingness to keep talking with me. I think you have a lot to teach me and my world. That is why I am trying to hear you closely.
So, I know you exploded in ch.3 and let slip out that you were afraid even before the disaster. But your rage and sense of deep injury doesn't stop in ch.3. In chs.6-7 you really go after God and your friends. I like your mind, Job. You don't mind leaping to conclusions, even before all evidence is in. You believe that God is behind it all. You are convinced of it. And because it makes absolutely no sense to you that this has happened, you just have to have an answer from God about why he is tormenting you so.
But your leaping to conclusions gets you into trouble, Job, and I feel I must point it out. It doesn't get you into trouble with God, because, as it turns out, you will be right about God, and God will even admit it at the end, though in a sort of mealy-mouthed way (42:7,8). But you really treated the friends unjustly, Job. Oh, they may have been theological prigs, and they may have been sure of themselves and their interpretation of the world, but look in the mirror, Job. They are your friends, aren't they?
Well, here is what I mean about you getting into trouble by leaping to conclusions with respect to the friends. At first they said nothing, giving you a lot of "space" to ruminate on your distress. Then, they let you speak first. I often wondered why they didn't say anything first, since I was taught in seminary (yeah, I spent three years there in the 1970s) that the best "bedside" manner when you were with someone who was suffering was to initiate the conversation with innocuous but sincere statements. "How are you feeling today? May I get you something? I am very glad to see you today." You see, that is the way that you are supposed to "read" silence today, Job. But that wasn't the way it worked with you, is it? They let you speak first. I actually think that is pretty generous of them. They were kind enough to sit with you, weep with you and let you put the first interpretive template over your distress. And boy did you hit the pitch out of the park when they let you speak. I am sure their ears were absolutely burning by the time you said, "but trouble comes" in 3:26.
And, then your friend Eliphaz spoke. I guess he was the oldest, or the richest, friend. Maybe he was the "second greatest guy in the East," so to speak. You know what strikes me about the way he addressed you, Job? He was so calm and kind and measured. You recall his first words to you: "If one ventures a word with you, will you be offended? but who can keep from speaking (4:2)?" You know, I see him facing a genuine dilemma here and not shrinking from it. He realizes that your experience has cut you to the quick; that the most tender parts of your life are now exposed to view. It is the kind of situation where a person is in such a fragile mental state that you know that almost anything you say to them can make their psychological "house" come crashing down again. Eliphaz saw that in you. He saw such mingled longing and anger and desire for explanation and physical and psycholgical anguish in you that even the slightest "fluffing of your pillow" might evoke the most irrational howls of pain from you. He knew that. And he was right, wasn't he? You really were in no shape to listen, were you? But he wanted to say something, and can you blame him? He wants to do something to help, but he is afraid that even his gestures of unalloyed friendship will be taken by you as an offense.
But he feels he has to speak. Well, I don't want to go through all of what he says to you in chs.4-5, but I do want to say that he is upbeat, gently encouraging, and that he even chides you a slight bit in 4:5--that is, you dished out the pleasant interpretive medicine to sufferers when you were judge; why don't you take a draught of the same elixir when the distress has visited you?
But here is what I want to say about you jumping to conclusions with respect to the friends. After Eliphaz has been so kind to you, so gentle, so encouraging, you turn to attacking God in ch.6 but then you turn to the friends and begin to attack them in 6:14. What got into you Job? Listen to yourself in 6:15--"My companions are treacherous like a torrent-bed, like freshets that pass away..." Where does that come from? How can it be true at all? Your companions, in fact, just took a long and arduous journey from all over the East to be with you and console you. They had to put their businesses either on hold or in the hands of trusted subordinates so that they could be with you. And they wept with you and listened to you and the richest or oldest, Eliphaz, even tried to interpret your pain in a way consistent with the tradition but also affirming your humanity. And what do you do? You talk about all their acts as acts of betrayal. You use the most feared metaphor of the desert world, a wadi that dries up, leaving the people without hope and without water. That is what you say your friends are to you. Faithless. Treacherous. Like those hated wadis that give no water when you need them.
Well, Job, what were you expecting from the friends? That they would wave a magic wand over you and proclaim you healthy? That they would give it all back to you? That they would "make it all better?" You simply abuse them in ch.6. But maybe you could have acted in no other way. You can only speak what is on your mind, and you may feel, in the inner dungeon of the heart that you are entering, that abuse is the only reality in relations between people and between people and God. It is a wonder, Job, that they just didn't pack up and leave after ch.6.
You really are in quite a bind, Job, by the time you get to this 2nd person address to God in 7:12-21. Now I think I am finally able to understand what you mean when you say you reject/despise things in 7:16. But, we will have to wait until the next talk to unfold that.