And yet, see how his brethren have dealt with him! Mark how those who were his friends stand apart, Eliphaz and the rest, behind them others who once claimed kinship with him. How do they look? Their faces are clouded. They must be on God's side against Job. Yea, God Himself has moved them to this. "_He hath put my brethren far from me, And my confidants are wholly estranged from me. My kinsfolk have failed And my familiar friends have forgotten me. They that dwell in my house and my maids count me for a stranger; I am an alien in their sight. I call my servant and he gives me no answer, I must entreat him with my mouth. My breath is offensive to my wife, And my ill savour to the sons of my body. Even young children despise me; If I would arise they speak against me. My bone cleaveth to my skin and to my flesh, And I am escaped with the skin of my teeth._" The picture is one of abject humiliation. He is rejected by all who once loved him, forced to entreat his servants, become offensive to his wife and grandsons; jeered at even by children of the place. The case appears to us unnatural and shows the almost fiendish hardness of the Oriental world; that is to say, if the account is not coloured for dramatic purposes. The intention is to represent the extremity of Job's wretchedness, the lowest depth to which he is reduced. The fire of his spirit is almost quenched by shame and desolation. He shows the days of his misery in the strongest shadow in order to compel, if possible, the sympathy so persistently withheld. "_Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O ye my friends, For the hand of God hath touched me. Why do ye persecute me as God, And are not satisfied with my flesh?_"