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Eliphaz and the response from Job: Job 4–7

After Eliphaz’s advice to talk to God about his problems, Job started being clearer about how his friends’ support felt:

Job 6:14-18 One should be kind to a fainting friend,
but you accuse me without any fear of the Almighty.
My brothers, you have proved as unreliable as a seasonal brook
that overflows its banks in the spring
when it is swollen with ice and melting snow.
But when the hot weather arrives, the water disappears.
The brook vanishes in the heat.
The caravans turn aside to be refreshed,
but there is nothing to drink, so they die.

This is a graphic description of the effect of Eliphaz’s words.

I have lived through a few droughts in Australia. Some were severe enough to leave mid-sized towns without water from their local supply, farming regions with no rain for years. Had we been a less-developed nation, I have no doubt we would have had famine and death.

This is what support without empathy feels like: drought and death. Instead of bringing living water (as in John 4 and John 7), Job’s friends brought criticism (6:25), disregard for his cries of desperation (6:26), an assumption of guilt (6:29), and perhaps even a suggestion that he was lying (6:30).