Impatience Justified: The first chapter of Job’s response to Eliphaz divides into three parts. Initially (vv. 1–13), he defends the sense of growing impatience with his circumstance that Eliphaz has attacked (4:1–6). Job then turns to a counterattack on the fickleness of some friendship (vv. 14–23). He concludes chapter 6 with a pointed demand to know where sin resides within him that is commensurate with the punishment he bears (vv. 24–30).

6:1–4  Job’s impetuous words are the consequence of unbearable anguish and misery. Using the metaphor of the market scale, he claims his suffering is beyond measure—exceeding even the imponderable mass of all the sand of the seas. The cause of Job’s suffering is the enmity of God (shadday), which he experiences as an archer’s attack with poisoned arrows…