Bible Strands
Job 6:15
But my brothers are as faithless as wadis, as seasonal streams that overflow,
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Job speaks to his three friends during his prolonged affliction, directly following his plea for basic human kindness in verse 14 and preceding his description of how the wadis vanish in verse 16.
The words — בָּגְדוּ (ba.ge.Du) translates literally as “they have acted treacherously,” and נְחָלִים (ne.cha.Lim) denotes “wadis,” which are dry riverbeds that only carry water during seasonal rains.
The thread — The motif of abandoned sufferers and fickle companions recurs in Psalm 38:11, Psalm 41:9, and Jeremiah 15:18, where friends withdraw or become like deceptive water sources.
Why it lands — It forces the reader to accept that human loyalty is structurally unreliable and to cease demanding sustained comfort from people who cannot provide it.
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.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
My brethren have dealt deceitfully as a brook, and as the stream of brooks they pass away;
Cross-references
- Psalms 38:11 My beloved and friends shun my disease, and my kinsmen stand at a distance.
- Jeremiah 15:18 Why is my pain unending, and my wound incurable, refusing to be healed? You have indeed become like a mirage to me—water that is not there.
- Psalms 41:9 Even my close friend whom I trusted, the one who shared my bread, has lifted up his heel against me.
- Psalms 55:12 For it is not an enemy who insults me; that I could endure. It is not a foe who rises against me; from him I could hide.
- John 13:18 I am not speaking about all of you; I know whom I have chosen. But this is to fulfill the Scripture: ‘The one who shares My bread has lifted up his heel against Me.’
- John 16:32 “Look, an hour is coming and has already come when you will be scattered, each to his own home, and you will leave Me all alone. Yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me.
- Job 19:19 All my best friends despise me, and those I love have turned against me.
- Psalms 88:18 You have removed my beloved and my friend; darkness is my closest companion.
- Jeremiah 9:4 “Let everyone guard against his neighbor; do not trust any brother, for every brother deals craftily, and every friend spreads slander.
- Jeremiah 30:14 All your lovers have forgotten you; they no longer seek you, for I have struck you as an enemy would, with the discipline of someone cruel, because of your great iniquity and your numerous sins.