Albert Barnes Commentary Job 6:2

"Oh that my vexation were but weighed, And all my calamity laid in the balances!" — Job 6:2 (ASV)

O that my grief were thoroughly weighed - The word translated “grief” here (כעשׂ ka‛aś) can mean either vexation, trouble, or grief (Ecclesiastes 1:18; Ecclesiastes 2:23), or it can mean anger (Deuteronomy 32:19; Ezekiel 20:28). It is translated by the Septuagint here as ὀργή orgē - anger; by Jerome, as peccata - sins.

The meaning of the whole passage may be either that Job wished his anger or his complaints to be laid in the balance with his calamity, to see if one was more weighty than the other—meaning that he had not complained unreasonably or unjustly (Rosenmuller); or that he wished his afflictions might be put into one scale and the sands of the sea into another, and the one weighed against the other (Noyes); or simply, that he desired that his sorrows should be accurately estimated.

This last interpretation is, I think, the true meaning of the passage.

Job supposed his friends had not understood and appreciated his sufferings. He believed they were inclined to blame him without understanding the extent of his sorrows, and he desires that they would estimate them correctly before they condemned him. In particular, he seems to have thought that Eliphaz had not done justice to the depth of his sorrows in the remarks he had just made.

The figure of weighing actions or sorrows is not uncommon or unnatural. It means to make an exact estimate of their amount. Thus, we speak of heavy calamities, of afflictions that crush us by their weight, and so on.

Laid in the balances - The margin says, “lifted up.” This means raised up and put in the scales, or put in the scales and then raised up—as is common in weighing.

Together - יחד yachad. This means “at the same time”—that all his sorrows, griefs, and woes were to be piled on the scales and then weighed. He believed that only a partial estimate had been made of the extent of his calamities.