NOTES for Job 16:1-17:16

¹Then Job answered and said,

²I have heard many such things: miserable comforters are ye all.

³Shall vain words have an end? or what emboldeneth thee that thou answerest?

⁴I also could speak as ye do: if your soul were in my soul's stead, I could heap up words against you, and shake mine head at you.

⁵But I would strengthen you with my mouth, and the moving of my lips should asswage your grief.

⁶Though I speak, my grief is not asswaged: and though I forbear, what am I eased?

⁷But now he hath made me weary: thou hast made desolate all my company.

⁸And thou hast filled me with wrinkles, which is a witness against me: and my leanness rising up in me beareth witness to my face.

⁹He teareth me in his wrath, who hateth me: he gnasheth upon me with his teeth; mine enemy sharpeneth his eyes upon me.

¹⁰They have gaped upon me with their mouth; they have smitten me upon the cheek reproachfully; they have gathered themselves together against me.

¹¹God hath delivered me to the ungodly, and turned me over into the hands of the wicked.

¹²I was at ease, but he hath broken me asunder: he hath also taken me by my neck, and shaken me to pieces, and set me up for his mark.

¹³His archers compass me round about, he cleaveth my reins asunder, and doth not spare; he poureth out my gall upon the ground.

¹⁴He breaketh me with breach upon breach, he runneth upon me like a giant.

¹⁵I have sewed sackcloth upon my skin, and defiled my horn in the dust.

¹⁶My face is foul with weeping, and my eyelids is the shadow of death;

¹⁷Not for any injustice in mine hands: also my prayer is pure.

¹⁸O earth, cover not thou my blood, and let my cry have no place.

¹⁹Also now, behold, my witness is in heaven, and my record is on high.

²⁰My friends scorn me: but mine eye poureth out tears unto God.

²¹O that one might plead for a man with God, as a man pleadeth for his neighbour!

²²When a few years are come, then I shall go the way whence I shall not return.

¹My breath is corrupt, my days are extinct, the graves are ready for me.

²Are there not mockers with me? and doth not mine eye continue in their provocation?

³Lay down now, put me in a surety with thee; who is he that will strike hands with me?

⁴For thou hast hid their heart from understanding: therefore shalt thou not exalt them.

⁵He that speaketh flattery to his friends, even the eyes of his children shall fail.

⁶He hath made me also a byword of the people; and aforetime I was as a tabret.

⁷Mine eye also is dim by reason of sorrow, and all my members are as a shadow.

⁸Upright men shall be astonied at this, and the innocent shall stir up himself against the hypocrite.

⁹The righteous also shall hold on his way, and he that hath clean hands shall be stronger and stronger.

¹⁰But as for you all, do ye return, and come now: for I cannot find one wise man among you.

¹¹My days are past, my purposes are broken off, even the thoughts of my heart.

¹²They change the night into day: the light is short because of darkness.

¹³If I wait, the grave is mine house: I have made my bed in the darkness.

¹⁴I have said to corruption, Thou art my father: to the worm, Thou are my mother, and my sister.

¹⁵And where is now my hope? as for my hope, who shall see it?

¹⁶They shall go down to the bars of the pit, when our rest together is in the dust.

Answering Eliphaz, Job tells his friends directly that they do not understand him at all and do not want to understand him (Job 16:2-3). He says to them: if I were in your place and you in mine, it would cost me nothing to "comfort" you in the same way with meaningless general phrases and common religious truths (Job 16:4-5). Meanwhile, Job is waiting for an answer not from his friends at all, but from God (Job 16:20). He accuses God precisely of his misfortunes, asserting that none other than God Himself has abandoned him to the mercy of fate, as the wicked are abandoned, destroyed his family, and sent him an illness that Job did not deserve at all (Job 16:6-17). And yet Job speaks of his heavenly Advocate (Job 16:18-19). At first glance this transition from despair to hope may seem inconsistent. But the seeming inconsistency is resolved at once (Job 16:21-22).

As we can see, Job connects his hopes precisely with the fact that a face-to-face meeting with God, like a person's meeting with another person, is still possible. Then there is hope that God will value Job's righteousness by relating His holiness to a human measure. For now, however, Job has to defend his righteousness not only before God, but also before his friends, who do not want to understand him or support him in his search for meaning. Job perceives his friends' words as nothing but mockery (Job 17:1-2). He asks God to stand up for him before his friends, whose heart, in his own words, is "closed to understanding" (Job 17:4-7).

Job has no doubt that his friends are being hypocritical in their communication with him (Job 17:8-9). Religious fear makes them fail to notice the obvious: Job's situation is such that it cannot fit into any traditional religious framework; from that point of view Job has no hope and can have none (Job 17:13-16). But Job's friends behave toward him as though his situation were completely ordinary, as though nothing special had happened, and as though it were enough simply to wait a little and everything would normalize by itself and become as it was before. In Job's own words, they "try to turn night into day" (Job 17:10-12). It is no wonder that Job finds no true wisdom in his friends' words, and that all their consolations only irritate him.

Other notes

For Job 16:1-17:16