“My brethren have dealt deceitfully as a brook, and as the stream of brooks they pass away;”
My Notes
What Does Job 6:15 Mean?
Job turns on his friends with one of the most vivid metaphors in the Bible: they are like a wadi — a seasonal brook in the desert that flows during the rainy season but dries up completely in summer, exactly when water is most needed. "My brethren have dealt deceitfully as a brook."
The word "deceitfully" is striking. Brooks don't intend to deceive — they just flow when conditions produce water and dry up when they don't. But to a thirsty traveler who counted on finding water there, the dry wadi feels like betrayal. Job isn't saying his friends are intentionally malicious. He's saying they're unreliable — full of words when things are easy, empty when things are hard.
The image of "streams that pass away" describes seasonal water that vanishes with the heat. In the desert climate of the ancient Near East, wadis were famously treacherous — travelers could die of thirst at a wadi that had been flowing days before. The landscape itself seems to promise water and then withdraw it.
Reflection Questions
- 1.Who in your life has been a 'wadi' — present in good times but absent in hard ones?
- 2.What kind of friend are you in someone else's worst season? Do you flow or dry up?
- 3.How do you become a 'perennial spring' rather than a seasonal brook in your relationships?
- 4.Have you experienced the particular grief of a friend who means well but can't be present when it matters most?
Devotional
Job's friends are like desert streams: full when they're not needed, empty when they are. They had plenty of words when life was good. Now that Job needs them — really needs them — they're dry.
This is one of the most painful descriptions of fair-weather friendship in all of literature. Job isn't angry that his friends are imperfect. He's grieving that they're seasonal. They were present in the rainy season of his life, flowing with companionship and warmth. But summer came — the season of loss, grief, and genuine need — and they dried up. What remains isn't comfort but theology, not presence but explanation.
The brook doesn't mean to deceive. It just can't sustain itself in harsh conditions. And that's the saddest thing about unreliable friendships: they're often not malicious. They're just structurally incapable of enduring difficulty. The friend who's wonderful at parties and terrible at hospitals. The person who's present for celebrations but absent during crises. They aren't evil — they're wadis.
What kind of friend are you in someone's summer? When the heat of their suffering makes everything uncomfortable, do you flow or dry up? And who are the perennial springs in your life — the friends who are there in every season?
Commentary
Trusted original commentary from respected historical Bible scholars and theologians.
Which are blackish by reason of the ice,.... When frozen over, they look of a blackish colour, and is what is called a…
My brethren - To wit, the three friends who had come to condole with him. He uses the language of brethren, to intimate…
Eliphaz had been very severe in his censures of Job; and his companions, though as yet they had said little, yet had…
they pass away Better, that pass away, cf. ch. Job 11:16. The other sense, that overflow(their banks), is improbable.
Cross References
Related passages throughout Scripture