Job 6:14 teaches that someone who is worn out and close to giving up deserves kindness from a friend, and that this holds even when that person seems to have turned away from God. Job says this to his friends, who have come to comfort him after losing his children, his property and his health, and who have instead begun to lecture him. The words are a complaint, a plea for loyalty from people who should have stood by him.
“To him who is ready to faint, kindness should be shown from his friend; even to him who forsakes the fear of the Almighty.
Job 6:14 (WEB)
What Job 6:14 Means
The verse begins with “To him who is ready to faint,” which describes a person whose strength is nearly gone. Job is not describing a passing tiredness. He means a deep exhaustion of body, mind and spirit, the kind that makes ordinary hope feel out of reach. The first half of the verse names the moment when a person most needs help.
The phrase “kindness should be shown from his friend” states what that person is owed. Kindness here means loyal, practical goodwill, the sort a friend gives without first checking whether the suffering person has earned it. Job is saying that friendship has a duty to show up when someone is failing, and that the duty does not depend on whether the friend agrees with the person’s view of things.
The last clause, “even to him who forsakes the fear of the Almighty,” is the hardest part. Job’s friends assume that his suffering proves he must have sinned and turned from God. Job answers that even if someone had turned away from God, a friend would still owe him kindness. The verse does not promise that kindness will fix anything or that suffering will end. It makes a claim about what decent friendship requires, and it leaves the larger questions about justice and God’s ways open.
The Context of Job 6:14
The book of Job is a wisdom poem, most likely composed in the centuries before or around the exile, and its author is unknown. Its setting is a dispute among Job, a righteous man who has lost nearly everything, and three friends who insist that suffering is always the result of hidden wrongdoing. Verse 14 is part of Job’s reply to Eliphaz, one of those friends, and it turns the friends’ own accusations back on them.
The verses just before and after make the complaint clearer. In verses 11 to 13, Job says he has no strength left and no wisdom to lean on. In verses 15 to 17, he compares his friends to desert streams that look full of water in winter but dry up in the heat, leaving travelers stranded. Read this way, verse 14 is a charge that the friends have failed in the one thing they were supposed to do, which was to be steady when Job most needed them.
Key Phrases in Job 6:14
Proverbs 17:17
A friend loves at all times; and a brother is born for adversity.
(WEB)
This verse describes a friend who loves at all times and a brother born for adversity. It shows the same idea as Job 6:14, that real friendship is measured by steady presence when life turns hard, not by convenience or agreement.
Galatians 6:2
Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.
(WEB)
Paul urges believers to carry one another’s burdens, which gives a New Testament shape to the friend’s duty Job describes. The verse extends that duty into the life of the church, where bearing another’s weight becomes a shared calling.
A Short Prayer From Job 6:14
Lord, you see the people who are running out of strength, the ones who have nothing left to give and nowhere to turn. Make me a friend who shows up with real kindness, not judgment or easy answers. Help me to stay close when others pull away, and to trust that you are at work even when I cannot see how. Give me patience with those who are struggling, and humility to remember that I need the same mercy. Amen.
