Job 6:13

Study note

Setting — Job addresses his three companions while enduring prolonged physical and emotional breakdown, asking a rhetorical question about his remaining resources after his strength has failed. He positions himself at the threshold of despair, just before noting that even friends should show kindness to a man who has lost hope.

The words — The Hebrew phrase אֵין עֶזְרָתִי וְתוּשִׁיָּה (ʾên ʿezrātî wəṭûšîyyâ) literally states "not [is] my help and sound wisdom." The following verb נִדְחָה (niḏḥâ) declares that this capacity "has been banished" or driven away from him.

The thread — The absence of help and wisdom connects to Job 12:2, where Job questions his friends' claim to possess it, and to Job 26:2, which contrasts human feebleness with divine power. The immediate context in Job 6:14 extends this thread by stating that a despairing man deserves compassion even when he has abandoned reverence for God.

Why it lands — The text records a factual inventory of depleted human capacity rather than offering comfort or theological explanation. It requires the reader to acknowledge that when strength, wisdom, and support are removed, despair operates as a concrete condition, not merely an emotional state.

Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.