Job responds with a powerful emotional outburst. His pain and suffering are too overwhelming for calm words (6:1f), but he must speak; indeed, he needs to speak. Job then turns to prayer. Like in chapter 3, he still longs for death, but this desire never leads him to consider suicide. Job is not a cold stone or a bronze statue without feelings (6:12), but a living person who has hit rock bottom. Finally acknowledging his friends’ presence, he shares what friendship means to him. A friend is expected to be loyal and kind during times of distress. However, his friends are like the streams of Palestine that quickly fill with rain but then dry up. They cannot be trusted (6:14-21): they came, they saw, and they left (6:21). Job challenges them to tell him how he has sinned to deserve such suffering (6:24). Job does not stay silent. In the context of the entire book, verse 7:11 is particularly significant. The test Satan proposed was to see how Job would react, what he would say. Now he speaks. Why does God not leave him alone, or at least give him enough time to catch his breath? (7:19). Even if he has sinned (again, the question!), can’t God forgive him? An abyss separates any possible guilt on Job’s part from his sufferings. Soon he will die, and then it will be too late (7:20ff).