Job Replies: Miserable Comforters Are You
1 Job reproved his friends of mercifulness. 7 He showed the pitifulness of his case. 17 He maintained his innocence.
Job 16:1 Then Job replied:
The tone of Job’s answer to the second speech of Eliphaz is despairing.
Job 16:2 “I have heard many things like these; you are miserable comforters, all of you!
There was nothing new in the speech, except its increased bitterness. Job had heard, many times before, all the commonplaces about the universal sinfulness of man and the invariable connection between sin and suffering. See on Ps. 38:3; 39:9. Miserable comforters. Eliphaz had inquired, “Are the consolations [comforts] of God small with thee?” (ch. 15:11). This seemingly is Job’s answer to this thrust.
Job 16:3 Will your long-winded speeches never end? What ails you that you keep on arguing?
Job had begged his friends to be silent (ch. 13:5, 13). His present statement is a reply to Eliphaz, who had charged Job with uttering windy words (see ch. 15:2, 3). What disturbs or vexes you?
Job 16:4 I also could speak like you, if you were in my place; I could make fine speeches against you and shake my head at you.
There is no difficulty in finding arguments to overwhelm the afflicted. Anyone can talk when he is enjoying the blessings of life. Were the positions reversed, Job could condemn and moralize as effectively as they. Heap up words. That is, tie words together, reciting one after another old maxims and proverbs as Job’s friends had been so inclined to do. Shake my head. A Hebrew mode of condemnation (see Ps. 22:7; Isa. 37:22; Jer. 18:16; Matt. 27:39).
Job 16:5 But my mouth would encourage you; comfort from my lips would bring you relief.
“If I were in your place,” Job declares, in effect, “I would not act as you have acted. I would comfort and encourage you.”
Job 16:6 “Yet if I speak, my pain is not relieved; and if I refrain, it does not go away.
Job’s friends might bring him comfort if they would, but Job was unable to obtain any relief either by his words or by his silence.
Job 16:7 Surely, God, you have worn me out; you have devastated my entire household.
The sudden change from the third person to the second person is not uncommon in Hebrew. Note a change in reverse order in vs. 8, 9. Verse 7 marks a transition. Job turns from complaints against his comforters to an enumeration of his own sufferings. His first complaint is weariness (see ch. 3:13). It was natural that he should long for rest. His second complaint is that he has lost his children and that his friends are disloyal to him. Weariness and the sense of being alone combine to bring him great suffering.
Job 16:8 You have shriveled me up—and it has become a witness; my gauntness rises up and testifies against me.
Job seems to picture God as compressing him with trouble until his body shrivels and crumples up into wrinkles. This condition is interpreted by his friends as a witness against him, according to their theory of suffering.
Job 16:9 God assails me and tears me in his anger and gnashes his teeth at me; my opponent fastens on me his piercing eyes.
The picture appears to be that of a wild animal attacking its prey. It seems to Job that God is his enemy, whereas, if the facts had been known, Satan would be the one indicted (see Job 10:16; cf. Hosea 13:7).
Job 16:10 People open their mouths to jeer at me; they strike my cheek in scorn and unite together against me.
Both God and man, Job feels, are against him (see Ps. 22:13; 35:15, 16; Micah 5:1; Matt. 27:30; Luke 22:64; John 18:22).
Job 16:11 God has turned me over to the ungodly and thrown me into the clutches of the wicked.
All that Job had suffered at the hands of men—the gibes of his “comforters,” the insults and derision of base men, the desertion of many who might have been expected to help him—all these calamities Job attributes to God Himself. In so doing, he commits a common error of mankind—that of blaming God for those evil displays of human nature that are incited by Satan.
Job 16:12 All was well with me, but he shattered me; he seized me by the neck and crushed me. He has made me his target;
Job considers himself as a target for God’s arrows (see Deut. 32:23; Job 6:4; Ps. 7:13; 38:2; Lam. 3:12).
Job 16:13 his archers surround me. Without pity, he pierces my kidneys and spills my gall on the ground.
His archers. Job may be referring to his “friends.”
Job 16:14 Again and again he bursts upon me; he rushes at me like a warrior.
The figure changes, and Job seems to be a fort that God breaks down by attack after attack until it lies in ruin.
Job 16:15 “I have sewed sackcloth over my skin and buried my brow in the dust.
Sewed sackcloth. Another transition in thought. Job turns to the consideration of how he has acted under his severe affliction. He has put on sackcloth, not for a time, merely as ordinary mourners do, but permanently, by sewing it tightly about his skin.
Job 16:16 My face is red with weeping, dark shadows ring my eyes;
The look of Job’s eyes portended death.
Job 16:17 yet my hands have been free of violence and my prayer is pure.
Job is denying the insinuations Eliphaz had made against him (see ch. 15:34, 35). My prayer is pure. Job maintains not only the integrity of his actions, but also the sincerity of his prayers.
Job 16:18 “Earth, do not cover my blood; may my cry never be laid to rest!
Verses 18–22 record an impassioned plea for vindication. My cry. Job desired that the voice of his protest should not die away unheard.
Job 16:19 Even now my witness is in heaven; my advocate is on high.
This verse presents evidence of a faint glimmer of hope in the dark night of despair. Although Job is convinced that God is afflicting him, he still maintains at least a measure of confidence in Him.
Job 16:20 My intercessor is my friend as my eyes pour out tears to God;
God alone is Job’s refuge. As hard as he thinks God has used him, he still looks to Him for vindication, support, and sympathy. He has nowhere else to turn. Despite the storms that stir the surface of his life, the depths remain in a measure unperturbed.
Job 16:21 on behalf of a man he pleads with God as one pleads for a friend.
Job’s plea seems to be that God would pronounce him not guilty; that God would cease afflicting him and appear on his side. In v. 19 Job had called God his witness.
Job 16:21 on behalf of a man he pleads with God as one pleads for a friend.
Job 16:22 “Only a few years will pass before I take the path of no return.
This verse more appropriately begins the following chapter, which opens with anticipation of the approach of death.