1Then Job answered and said: 2I have heard many such things; miserable comforters are you all! 3Is there no end to windy words? What ails you that you answer thus? 4I also could speak as you do, if your soul were in the place of my soul. I could heap up words against you, and shake my head at you. 5But I would assure you with my mouth, and the moving of my lips would be restrained. 6When I speak, my pain is not relieved; and if I remain silent, how do I proceed? 7But now He has exhausted me; you have devastated my company. 8You have seized me as a witness; my deception rises up against me and testifies to my face. 9He tears me in His wrath, and hates me; He gnashes at me with His teeth; my adversary sharpens His eyes at me. 10They have gaped at me with their mouth, and struck me reproachfully on the cheek; they gather together against me. 11The Mighty God has delivered me to the perverse, and turned me over into the hands of the wicked. 12I was at ease, but He has shattered me; He also has taken hold on my neck, and dashed me to pieces; He has set me up for His target. 13His archers surround me; He pierces my heart and does not pity; He pours out my gall on the ground. 14He breaks me with break upon break; He runs at me like a mighty man. 15I have sewn sackcloth over my skin, and have thrust my horn into the dust. 16My face is flushed from weeping, and on my eyelids is the shadow of death; 17although no violence is in my hands, and my prayer is pure. 18O earth, do not cover my blood, and let my cry have no resting place! 19Even now, behold, my evidence is in Heaven, and my witness is on high. 20My friends scorn me; my eyes pour out tears to God. 21Oh, that one might plead for a man with God, as a man pleads for the son of his friend! 22For when the number of years have come, I shall go the way from which I shall not return.
Jamieson Fausset Brown Bible Commentary 2 JOB'S REPLY. (Job 16:1-22)
(
Job 13:4).
3 "Words of wind," Hebrew. He retorts upon Eliphaz his reproach (
Job 15:2).
emboldeneth--literally, "What wearies you so that ye contradict?" that is, What have I said to provoke you? &c. [SCHUTTENS]. Or, as better accords with the first clause, "Wherefore do ye weary yourselves contradicting?" [UMBREIT].
4 heap up--rather, "marshal together (an army of) words against you."
shake . . . head--in mockery; it means nodding, rather than shaking; nodding is not with us, as in the East, a gesture of scorn (
Isa 37:22;
Jer 18:16;
Matt 27:39).
5 strengthen . . . with . . . mouth--bitter irony. In allusion to Eliphaz' boasted "consolations" (
Job 15:11). Opposed to strengthening with the heart, that is, with real consolation. Translate, "I also (like you) could strengthen with the mouth," that is, with heartless talk: "And the moving of my lips (mere lip comfort) could console (in the same fashion as you do)" [UMBREIT]. "Hearty counsel" (
Pro 27:9) is the opposite.
6 eased--literally, "What (portion of my sufferings) goes from me?"
7 But now--rather, "ah!"
he--God.
company--rather, "band of witnesses," namely, those who could attest his innocence (his children, servants, &c.). So the same Hebrew is translated in
Job 16:8. UMBREIT makes his "band of witnesses," himself, for, alas! he had no other witness for him. But this is too recondite.
8 filled . . . with wrinkles--Rather (as also the same Hebrew word in
Job 22:16; English Version, "cut down"), "thou hast fettered me, thy witness" (besides cutting off my "band of witnesses,"
Job 16:7), that is, hast disabled me by pains from properly attesting my innocence. But another "witness" arises against him, namely, his "leanness" or wretched state of body, construed by his friends into a proof of his guilt. The radical meaning of the Hebrew is "to draw together," whence flow the double meaning "to bind" or "fetter," and in Syriac, "to wrinkle."
leanness--meaning also "lie"; implying it was a "false witness."
9 Image from a wild beast. So God is represented (
Job 10:16).
who hateth me--rather, "and pursues me hard." Job would not ascribe "hatred" to God (
Ps 50:22).
mine enemy--rather, "he sharpens, &c., as an enemy" (
Ps 7:12). Darts wrathful glances at me, like a foe (
Job 13:24).
10 gaped--not in order to devour, but to mock him. To fill his cup of misery, the mockery of his friends (
Job 16:10) is added to the hostile treatment from God (
Job 16:9).
smitten . . . cheek--figurative for contemptuous abuse (
Lam 3:30;
Matt 5:39).
gathered themselves--"conspired unanimously" [SCHUTTENS].
11 the ungodly--namely, his professed friends, who persecuted him with unkind speeches.
turned me over--literally, "cast me headlong into the hands of the wicked."
12 I was at ease--in past times (
Job 1:1-
Job 1:3).
by my neck--as an animal does its prey (so
Job 10:16).
shaken--violently; in contrast to his former "ease" (
Ps 102:10). Set me up (again).
mark-- (
Job 7:20;
Lam 3:12). God lets me always recover strength, so as to torment me ceaselessly.
13 his archers--The image of
Job 16:12 is continued. God, in making me His "mark," is accompanied by the three friends, whose words wound like sharp arrows.
gall--put for a vital part; so the liver (
Lam 2:11).
14 The image is from storming a fortress by making breaches in the walls (
2Kgs 14:13).
a giant--a mighty warrior.
15 sewed--denoting the tight fit of the mourning garment; it was a sack with armholes closely sewed to the body.
horn--image from horned cattle, which when excited tear the earth with their horns. The horn was the emblem of power (
1Kgs 22:11). Here, it is
in the dust--which as applied to Job denotes his humiliation from former greatness. To throw one's self in the dust was a sign of mourning; this idea is here joined with that of excited despair, depicted by the fury of a horned beast. The Druses of Lebanon still wear horns as an ornament.
16 foul--rather, "is red," that is, flushed and heated [UMBREIT and NOYES].
shadow of death--that is, darkening through many tears (
Lam 5:17). Job here refers to Zophar's implied charge (
Job 11:14). Nearly the same words occur as to Jesus Christ (
Isa 53:9). So
Job 16:10 above answers to the description of Jesus Christ (
Ps 22:13;
Isa 50:6, and
Job 16:4 to
Ps 22:7). He alone realized what Job aspired after, namely, outward righteousness of acts and inward purity of devotion. Jesus Christ as the representative man is typified in some degree in every servant of God in the Old Testament.
18 my blood--that is, my undeserved suffering. He compares himself to one murdered, whose blood the earth refuses to drink up until he is avenged (
Gen 4:10-
Gen 4:11;
Ezek 24:1,
Ezek 24:8;
Isa 26:21). The Arabs say that the dew of heaven will not descend on a spot watered with innocent blood (compare
2Sam 1:21).
no place--no resting-place. "May my cry never stop!" May it go abroad! "Earth" in this verse in antithesis to "heaven" (
Job 16:19). May my innocence be as well-known to man as it is even now to God!
19 Also now--Even now, when I am so greatly misunderstood on earth, God in heaven is sensible of my innocence.
record--Hebrew, "in the high places"; Hebrew, "my witness." Amidst all his impatience, Job still trusts in God.
20 Hebrew, "are my scorners"; more forcibly, "my mockers--my friends!" A heart-cutting paradox [UMBREIT]. God alone remains to whom he can look for attestation of his innocence; plaintively with tearful eye, he supplicates for this.
21 one--rather, "He" (God). "Oh, that He would plead for a man (namely, me) against God." Job quaintly says, "God must support me against God; for He makes me to suffer, and He alone knows me to be innocent" [UMBREIT]. So God helped Jacob in wrestling against Himself (compare
Job 23:6;
Gen 32:25). God in Jesus Christ does plead with God for man (
Rom 8:26-
Rom 8:27).
as a man--literally, "the Son of man." A prefiguring of the advocacy of Jesus Christ--a boon longed for by Job (
Job 9:33), though the spiritual pregnancy of his own words, designed for all ages, was but little understood by him (
Ps 80:17).
for his neighbour--Hebrew, "friend." Job himself (
Job 42:8) pleaded as intercessor for his "friends," though "his scorners" (
Job 16:20); so Jesus Christ the Son of man (
Luke 23:34); "for friends" (
John 15:13-
John 15:15).
22 few--literally, "years of number," that is, few, opposed to numberless (
Gen 34:30).