I see that there are different translations of this verse. All did not seem to be satisfying. So I was wondering could it be possible to translate it as:
“To the one in despair his friends [withheld] kindness and [told] he [the one in despair] abandoned the fear of the Lord.”
Job 6:14 is frustratingly terse - in the Hebrew it is only six words! It reads literally:
To the despairing friend - kindness and fear [of the?] almighty [he] forsakes
Ellicott summarizes the difficulty in translating this verse:
(14) But he forsaketh the fear of the Almighty.—It is difficult to determine the precise relation of dependent clauses in an archaic language like the Hebrew; but the Authorised Version is, at all events, not correct here, the sense rather being, “Even to one that forsaketh the fear of the Almighty;” or, perhaps, better still, “lest he should forsake;” or, “he may even forsake,” &c.
The common versions have translations that can be grouped into three categories:
ESV & NIV: He who withholds kindness from a friend forsakes the fear of the Almighty.
BSB * NKJV: A despairing man should have the kindness of his friend, even if he forsakes the fear of the Almighty.
NASB & AB: “For the despairing man there should be kindness from his friend; So that he does not abandon the fear of the Almighty.
That is, we must decide, based on the single verb "forsakes":
Even the context is little help here. Thus, Job 6:14 reads more like a proverb than a line of poetry.
Thus, no final conclusion is possible. For what it is worth, I prefer the NASB translation, but I do not insist upon it.
Your translation as stands is obscure.
The Hebrew text of Job 6:14 is as follows:
לַמָּ֣ס מֵרֵעֵ֣הוּ חָ֑סֶד וְיִרְאַ֖ת שַׁדַּ֣י יַעֲזֽוֹב׃ lammās mērēʿēhû ḥāsed, wəyirʾat šadday yaʿăzôb
I prefer to interpret Job as saying that failing to be compassionate to others is equivalent to turning away from God's fear; that is, it is equivalent to having no reverence for God. According to this viewpoint, the person who has no love for a friend also has no respect for God. The use of the third person may be confusing to translators.
This is a good book to help with translating Job.
Reyburn, Wiliam. A Handbook on Job. New York: UBS, 1992
