Job 6:22 Commentary and Bible Study

Job addresses them all – ‘your substance’ is plural. The hostility of these three men is aggravated by the fact that he had not invited them to come and to sympathise with him. He did not ask them to assess his case or to make any judgment about the cause of his suffering. They have taken it upon themselves to do that without being asked. If they had acted sympathetically that would have been a kindness, but now that they have launched this attack on him, they are intruding into what they were never asked to look into. Neither had he asked them to give from their substance. The word translated ‘reward’ by the KJV refers to a bribe offered on behalf of someone. Job had not asked them to deliver him from an enemy of some sort by paying a bribe or a ransom. That would indeed have put him in their debt, but he had not done so. It seems as if they could not keep away because they had an agenda of their own, and saw this as an opportunity to sort Job out, once and for all. Their seven-day silence in sitting with him looks less than genuine.