This verse illustrates that empty hope can cause devastating disappointment.
Job 6:20 forms part of Job’s response to his friend Eliphaz, following Job’s immense suffering after losing his children, property, and health. In this segment Job painfully compares his friends’ lack of comfort to the disappointment of travelers seeking water in a desert. He laments that just as caravans arrive at a dry riverbed and find their hopes dashed, so he too has been left unfulfilled by the counsel of his friends. With words that ring with raw honesty, Job shows his utter isolation in affliction. When he says, “They were disappointed for they had trusted, They came there and were confounded” (v.20), he depicts a tragic scene: the desperate expectation of weary wanderers who anticipate relief, only to discover emptiness.
By evoking the image of an expected oasis that never appears, Job emphasizes how promises of help and words devoid of true compassion can devastate those who rely on them. Trust, in this sense, becomes fragile and easily shattered. Job is warning that words of comfort must be grounded in genuine empathy. Much as travelers thrust their entire hope into reaching the water, so Job needed real understanding from friends. Instead, he experienced the sting of disappointment—a betrayal that cut deeper than merely losing possessions or livelihood. The repeated imagery of confusion and disappointment underscores how human support, when half-hearted or rooted in misjudgment, can become as fruitless as a dried-up stream.
Such disappointment resonates throughout Scripture, but the Bible also offers hope in God’s faithfulness (Psalm 46:1). Jesus, in the New Testament, speaks of Himself as living water, promising that whoever believes in Him “will never thirst” (John 4:14). Though Job felt utterly forsaken, he still directed his complaint toward the Almighty, clinging to the recognition that only divine truth can truly satisfy. Through his anguish, Job foreshadows the deeper solace that will ultimately be revealed through Christ: an answer that never leaves us confounded.
Job 6:20 meaning
Job 6:20 forms part of Job’s response to his friend Eliphaz, following Job’s immense suffering after losing his children, property, and health. In this segment Job painfully compares his friends’ lack of comfort to the disappointment of travelers seeking water in a desert. He laments that just as caravans arrive at a dry riverbed and find their hopes dashed, so he too has been left unfulfilled by the counsel of his friends. With words that ring with raw honesty, Job shows his utter isolation in affliction. When he says, “They were disappointed for they had trusted, They came there and were confounded” (v.20), he depicts a tragic scene: the desperate expectation of weary wanderers who anticipate relief, only to discover emptiness.
By evoking the image of an expected oasis that never appears, Job emphasizes how promises of help and words devoid of true compassion can devastate those who rely on them. Trust, in this sense, becomes fragile and easily shattered. Job is warning that words of comfort must be grounded in genuine empathy. Much as travelers thrust their entire hope into reaching the water, so Job needed real understanding from friends. Instead, he experienced the sting of disappointment—a betrayal that cut deeper than merely losing possessions or livelihood. The repeated imagery of confusion and disappointment underscores how human support, when half-hearted or rooted in misjudgment, can become as fruitless as a dried-up stream.
Such disappointment resonates throughout Scripture, but the Bible also offers hope in God’s faithfulness (Psalm 46:1). Jesus, in the New Testament, speaks of Himself as living water, promising that whoever believes in Him “will never thirst” (John 4:14). Though Job felt utterly forsaken, he still directed his complaint toward the Almighty, clinging to the recognition that only divine truth can truly satisfy. Through his anguish, Job foreshadows the deeper solace that will ultimately be revealed through Christ: an answer that never leaves us confounded.