NOTES for Job 16:1-17:16
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.