There is one fundamental difference between Job and his friends: Job tries to speak to God, while his friends speak about God...
There is one fundamental difference between Job and his friends: Job tries to speak to God, while his friends speak about God. In practice, this means that what Job says has to do with life, while what his friends say, however correct, is abstract. Recognising this, Job calls his friends' speeches empty chatter. In their place, he would say something similar himself; in other words, for Job, his friends' speeches are determined by the fact that it is he, not they, who is suffering. They really are worthless comforters, though we cannot say with certainty that comforting him is even their aim.
It is important that, for Job himself, his words are not a therapeutic device: words do not make his suffering disappear. He cries out to God not to escape his torments but to find the path of life within them. Job is shattered by disaster and, as far as we can judge, is aware of his defencelessness. This is one way to understand the words of 16:8, which are difficult to grasp in the Synodal translation. Ancient and modern translations of this verse allow it to be understood as follows: God lays his hand on Job, and God himself also becomes the witness against him and his Judge. In these judicial proceedings, impossible from a human point of view, Job's being in the wrong is predetermined, for there is no one to defend him. Job had hoped that his friends would testify in his favour—put simply, that they would pray to God with him and for him—but they do not. Only Job himself says that he knows of no guilt on his part.
In this tragic situation, Job's faith suggests a way out that is impossible from his friends' point of view: he calls on God himself to become his defender, the Witness in Job's favour. If God is everything to a person, if he judges and also testifies to human sins and rises against the wicked, then let him himself also defend the one who has been cast down! Job repeats his lament that it is impossible to contend with God, because there is no one higher who could judge between God and a human being. ‘Defend me; be yourself my surety before yourself,’ Job cries, because there is no one else to stand surety for him: his friends lack mercy. In chapter 17, Job grieves that few days remain to him and that he will go down to the grave. As he sees it, it will then be too late to plead his case; nothing will be able to change. He therefore asks God to become his Defender now, while Job is still alive. Unlike his friends, Job here follows precisely the Revelation God gave through the biblical prophets.
16 Job upbraids his friends with unkindness, Job 16:1-5.
Bemoans himself, Job 16:6-16.
Appeals from their censure to the righteous judgment of God, Job 16:17-22.
16:2 Such things - These things are but vulgar and trivial. And so are all creatures, to a soul under deep conviction of sin, or the arrest of death.
16:3 End - When wilt thou put an end to these impertinent discourses?He retorts upon him his charge, chap.Job 15:2.
16:7 He - God, as appears by the following words. Weary - Either of complaining, or, of my life. Desolate - Hast turned my society into desolation, by destroying my children and servants.
16:9 Eyes - Looks upon me with a fierce, and sparkling eye, as enraged persons use to do.
16:10 They - My friends. Gaped - Opened their mouths wide against me. In all this Job was a type of Christ. These very expressions are used in the predictions of his sufferings, Psa 22:13.They gaped upon me with their mouths, and Mic 5:1.They shall smite the judge of Israel upon the check.
16:11 The wicked - And thus Christ was delivered into wicked hands, by the determinate counsel of God.
16:12 Shaken - As a mighty man doth with some stripling, when he wrestleth with him. Mark - That he may shoot all his arrows in me.
16:13 His archers - Whoever are our enemies, we must look on them as God's archers, and see him directing the arrow.
16:15 I have - So far am I from stretching out my hand against God, chap.Job 15:25, that I have humbled myself deeply under his hand.I have not only put on sackcloth, but sewed it on, as being resolved to continue my humiliation, as long as my affliction continues.Defiled my horn - I have willingly parted with all my wealth, and power, and glory (as the horn often signifies in scripture,) and been content to lie in the dust.
16:17 Not - And all this is not come upon me for any injurious dealing, but for other reasons known to God only. Pure - I do not cast off God's fear and service, chap.Job 15:4. I do still pray and worship God, and my prayer is accompanied with a sincere heart.
16:18 Earth - The earth is said to cover that blood, which lies undiscovered and unrevenged: but saith Job, if I be guilty of destroying any man, let the earth disclose it; let it be brought to light.Cry - Let the cry of my complaints to men, or prayers to God, find no place in the ears or hearts of God or men, if this be true.
16:19 Witness - Besides the witness of my conscience, God is witness of my integrity.
16:22 Go - To the state and place of the dead, whence men cannot return to this life. The meaning is, my death hastens, and therefore I earnestly desire that the cause depending, between me and my friends, may be determined, that if I be guilty of these things, I may bear the shame of it before all men, and if I be innocent, that I may see my own integrity, and the credit of religion, (which suffers upon this occasion) vindicated. How very certainly, and how very shortly are we likewise to go this journey.
17 Job still bemoans himself, Job 17:1-7.
Encourages good men to hold on their way, Job 17:8-9.
Declares he looks for no ease but in the grave, Job 17:10-16.
Job in this chapter suddenly passes from one thing to another as is usual for men in much trouble.
17:1 The graves - He speaks of the sepulchres of his fathers, to which he must be gathered. The graves where they are laid, are ready for me also. Whatever is unready, the grave is ready for us: it is a bed soon made. And if the grave be ready for us, it concerns us, to be ready for the grave.
17:2 Are not - Do not my friends, instead of comforting, mock me?Thus he returns to what he had said, chap.Job 16:20, and intimates the justice of his following appeal.
17:3 Surety - These words contain, an humble desire to God that he would be his surety, or appoint him a surety who should maintain his righteous cause against his opposers. Strike hands - Be surety to me; whereof that was the usual gesture.
17:4 Hid - Thou hast blinded the minds of my friends: therefore I desire a more wise and able judge. Therefore - Thou wilt not give them the victory over me in this contest, but wilt make them ashamed of their confidence.
17:7 As a shadow - I am grown so poor and thin, that I am not to be called a man, but the shadow of a man.
17:8 Astonied - At the depth and mysteriousness of God's judgments, which fall on innocent men, while the worst of men prosper.Yet - Notwithstanding all these sufferings of good men, and the astonishment which they cause, he shall the more zealously oppose those hypocrites, who make these strange providences of God an objection to religion.
17:10 Come - And renew the debate, as I see you are resolved to do.
17:11 My days - The days of my life. I am a dying man, and therefore the hopes you give me of the bettering of my condition, are vain.Purposes - Which I had in my prosperous days, concerning myself and children.
17:12 They - My thoughts so incessantly pursue and disturb me, that I can no more sleep in the night, than in the day.The light - The day - light, which often gives some comfort to men in misery, seems to be gone as soon as it is begun. Darkness - Because of my grievous pains and torments which follow me by day as well as by night.
17:13 Wait - For deliverance, I should be disappointed; for I am upon the borders of the grave, I expect no rest but in the dark grave, for which therefore I prepare myself. I endeavour to make it easy, by keeping my conscience pure, by seeing Christ lying in this bed, (so turning it into a bed of spices) and by looking beyond it to the resurrection.
17:14 Corruption - Heb. to the pit of corruption, the grave.Father - I am near a - kin to thee, and thou wilt receive and keep me in thy house, as parents do their children.
17:15 Hope - The happiness you would have me expect.
17:16 They - My hopes, of which he spake in the singular number, ver. Job 17:15, which he here changes into the plural, as is usual in these poetical books. Bars - Into the innermost parts of the pit: my hopes are dying, and will be buried in my grave. We must shortly be in the dust, under the bars of the pit, held fast there, 'till the general resurrection. All good men, if they cannot agree now will there rest together. Let the foresight of this cool the heat of all contenders, and moderate the disputers of this world.