Job 16:1–17:16 Job's Bitter Reply to His Friends

 ¹Then Job answered and said:

²“I have heard many such things;

Miserable comforters are you all!

³Shall words of wind have an end?

Or what provokes you that you answer?

⁴I also could speak as you do,

If your soul were in my soul’s place.

I could heap up words against you,

And shake my head at you;

⁵But I would strengthen you with my mouth,

And the comfort of my lips would relieve your grief.

⁶“Though I speak, my grief is not relieved;

And if I remain silent, how am I eased?

⁷But now He has worn me out;

You have made desolate all my company.

⁸You have shriveled me up,

And it is a witness against me;

My leanness rises up against me

And bears witness to my face.

⁹He tears me in His wrath, and hates me;

He gnashes at me with His teeth;

My adversary sharpens His gaze on me.

¹⁰They gape at me with their mouth,

They strike me reproachfully on the cheek,

They gather together against me.

¹¹God has delivered me to the ungodly,

And turned me over to the hands of the wicked.

¹²I was at ease, but He has shattered me;

He also has taken me by my neck, and shaken 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 wound upon wound;

He runs at me like a warrior.

¹⁵“I have sewn sackcloth over my skin,

And laid my head in 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.

¹⁸“O earth, do not cover my blood,

And let my cry have no resting place!

¹⁹Surely even now my witness is in heaven,

And my evidence 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 his neighbor!

²²For when a few years are finished,

I shall go the way of no return.

¹“My spirit is broken,

My days are extinguished,

The grave is ready for me.

²Are not mockers with me?

And does not my eye dwell on their provocation?

³“Now put down a pledge for me with Yourself.

Who is he who will shake hands with me?

⁴For You have hidden their heart from understanding;

Therefore You will not exalt them.

⁵He who speaks flattery to his friends,

Even the eyes of his children will fail.

⁶“But He has made me a byword of the people,

And I have become one in whose face men spit.

⁷My eye has also grown dim because of sorrow,

And all my members are like shadows.

⁸Upright men are astonished at this,

And the innocent stirs himself up against the hypocrite.

⁹Yet the righteous will hold to his way,

And he who has clean hands will be stronger and stronger.

¹⁰“But please, come back again, all of you,

For I shall not 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 near,’ they say, in the face of darkness.

¹³If I wait for the grave as my house,

If I make my bed in the darkness,

¹⁴If I say to corruption,

‘You are my father,’

And to the worm,

You are my mother and my sister,’

¹⁵Where then is my hope?

As for my hope, who can see it?

¹⁶Will they go down to the gates of Sheol?

Shall we have rest together in the dust?”

Commentary

16:1-5 ¹Then Job answered and said:

²“I have heard many such things;

Miserable comforters are you all!

³Shall words of wind have an end?

Or what provokes you that you answer?

⁴I also could speak as you do,

If your soul were in my soul’s place.

I could heap up words against you,

And shake my head at you;

⁵But I would strengthen you with my mouth,

And the comfort of my lips would relieve your grief.

Having heard the terrible charges laid against him by their counsels on the wicked mans plight, Job now in a broken bitterness tells them that they are nothing but miserable counselors, just a bunch of mean men without compassion, who seemingly care little about what Job is going through, but rather only getting him to confess his guilt when even he himself does not yet know what that is (vs. 1-2). Job then with a bit of sarcasm rebukes their words as nothing more than wind (i.e., meaningless words without substance), asking that they would end them just as they asked he end his. For what provokes them to respond to his questioning his plight (vs. 3), is it their concern for him? I think not, isn’t it just their refusing to believe that Job is innocent in all of this. Job then tells them it is easy to look down on another when one is at ease (vs. 4), but instead of doing that Job says if they were in his place he would comfort them and relieve their grief (vs. 5), not hold them in disdain and merciless guilt.

16:6-9 ⁶“Though I speak, my grief is not relieved;

And if I remain silent, how am I eased?

⁷But now He has worn me out;

You have made desolate all my company.

⁸You have shriveled me up,

And it is a witness against me;

My leanness rises up against me

And bears witness to my face.

⁹He tears me in His wrath, and hates me;

He gnashes at me with His teeth;

My adversary sharpens His gaze on me.

Job once again decries his plight, but this time to God directly. He then asks himself  if he speaks his grief is not relieved, (for his friends then only set themselves against him), and if he remains silent how does he find ease? For the pain of all his loses is to much to bear in silence. For remember Job already spent a week in absolute mourning silence and came away with no comfort and no probable answers (vs.6). Thus, Job says to God that He has worn him out, that He has taken away all his company (vs. 7), i.e. for all his friends and loved ones who would comfort him have now either perished or abandoned him (Job 16:20; 19:13-15). Job then decries his own health and vitality as being nothing more than shriveled up, as now bearing witness against him, so that even his leanness rises against him and bears witness to his face (vs. 8) so that even he cannot ignore it, and yet there is no explainable reason for it all. Verse nine then is one of the saddest verses in the Book of Job, for Job’s once reverent outlook of God as his friend has now been reduced to only seeing Him as His adversary, saying that in wrath and hatred He tears at him, saying that God hates him so much that He even gnashes at him with his teeth (like a wild animal intending to devour him), and that He sharpens His gaze upon him for harm. Now none of these are true of God, for all this evil that is happening to Job is coming to him from Satan, whom Job seemingly does not know exist. 

16:10-14 ¹⁰They gape at me with their mouth,

They strike me reproachfully on the cheek,

They gather together against me.

¹¹God has delivered me to the ungodly,

And turned me over to the hands of the wicked.

¹²I was at ease, but He has shattered me;

He also has taken me by my neck, and shaken 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 wound upon wound;

He runs at me like a warrior.

Job now decries that all who see him; (the once noble and revered Job); now only look at him with gaped mouths, (with a of look of fearful or scornful astonishment), that they even strike him reproachfully on the cheek, (as an act of fearless contempt for his person), even the wicked and the ungodly now gather against him, for he has been brought low before them all. Job then feels that it is God Himself who has turned him over to them (vs. 10-11). Verse ten and elven in many ways foretells then the Lord Jesus Christ’s Sufferings. Then in verses eleven and twelve Job points the blame for all of his miseries squarely on God, thus attributing what Satan has been doing to him to God, saying though he was at ease God shattered him, that He now takes him by the neck and shakes him to pieces, like an animal does to its prey, (vs. 11). Job then analogies even worse things about God, describing God as setting him up as His target and then sending His archers against him, saying that God even pierces his heart and does not pity him, that He pours all of his gall on the ground (vs. 12-13), saying that God breaks him with wound upon wound, and that is He is unrelenting in His assailing him, that He runs at him like a warrior, (what a fearful image that is) and thus of only having intentions of killing him (vs. 14). It’s bad, Job’s words here are really, really, bad, and completely unjustifiable, for him or anyone to describe God in such an evil manner. And yet Job is not alone in this, for many a saint first started out as a broken or embittered sinner, also thinking that God was their enemy, before embracing and experiencing the Grace of God through the Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. 

16:15-22 ¹⁵“I have sewn sackcloth over my skin,

And laid my head in 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.

¹⁸“O earth, do not cover my blood,

And let my cry have no resting place!

¹⁹Surely even now my witness is in heaven,

And my evidence 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 his neighbor!

²²For when a few years are finished,

I shall go the way of no return.

Job now in saying that he has sown sackcloth over his skin is akin to his saying that his mourning and misery will never end (vs. 15 BBC). And so with his cheeks reddened from crying, and his eyes blackened from lack of sleep (vs. 16), Job says that he was deserving of none of this, that there was no violence in hands, and that his prayer was pure (vs. 17). Basically that he was not living wickedly, nor living a hypocritical life. Job then pleads for vindication, and asks that his sufferings not be forgotten, either on earth or in heaven (vs. 18-19), saying that his friends even scorn him while he pours out his tears to God (vs. 20). Once again Job desires a mediator who could plead for him before God (vs. 21), before his life that he believes will soon end (vs. 22).

17:1-2 ¹“My spirit is broken,

My days are extinguished,

The grave is ready for me.

²Are not mockers with me?

And does not my eye dwell on their provocation?

Job’s mourning continues with his declaring that he believes his life has come to its end. And yet he still has to endure the mocking of his “friends”, whom Job feels are only provoking him to respond the way he does by their callous and unjustified accusations against him. 

17:3-4 ³“Now put down a pledge for me with Yourself.

Who is he who will shake hands with me?

⁴For You have hidden their heart from understanding;

Therefore You will not exalt them.

Job now turns away from his friends and asks God Himself to act as His “guarantor”, since no one else will. Job then sees his friends ignorance as something God has done to them, therefore he believes that God will not exalt them. For they have only been condemning a just and righteous person.

17:5 “He who speaks flattery to his friends,

Even the eyes of his children will fail.”

Job does not look kindly on flattery, saying the one who does so even the eyes of his children will fail. Now his words here may vey well be an indictment of his friends.

17:6 “But He has made me a byword of the people,

And I have become one in whose face men spit.

Job now decries his now low standing amongst the people, as one whom people now openly hold in contempt, who even spit in his face to show their disdain of him. And this Job says the Lord has done to him. The many parallels with the Lord Jesus and Job are clear and obvious.

17:7 My eye has also grown dim because of sorrow,

And all my members are like shadows.

Job’s deep sadness has caused his eyes to grow dim, for hope is light, and yet in Job’s life light seems utterly out of his sight. Now its not just Job’s emotional state that has been damaged, but his body also has taken a deep toll in all of this.  

17:8-9 ⁸Upright men are astonished at this,

And the innocent stirs himself up against the hypocrite.

⁹Yet the righteous will hold to his way,

And he who has clean hands will be stronger and stronger.

Once again Job, not giving up, reaches deep and sees that his vindication is coming. Therefore he says that upright men are astonished at this; at how he has been treated; for he believes that one day the innocent will rise up against the hypocrite and prevail (vs. 8). Job then cycles between great despair and hopelessness to wanting to prevail to prove his own innocence, basically saying that in no way will he submit to his friends’ charges and accusations against him, but he will stick to his way, for as he says he who has clean hands will get stronger and stronger (vs. 9).

17:10 “But please, come back again, all of you,

For I shall not find one wise man among you.”

With some sarcasm Job now releases his friends from their duty of "comforting" him, sarcastically saying to them all, please do come back again, for I shall not find one wise man among you. However they will not leave, for Job has challenged their cultures long standing held beliefs, and they will defend them. 

17:11-16 ¹¹My days are past,

My purposes are broken off,

Even the thoughts of my heart.

¹²They change the night into day;

‘The light is near,’ they say, in the face of darkness.

¹³If I wait for the grave as my house,

If I make my bed in the darkness,

¹⁴If I say to corruption,

‘You are my father,’

And to the worm,

You are my mother and my sister,’

¹⁵Where then is my hope?

As for my hope, who can see it?

¹⁶Will they go down to the gates of Sheol?

Shall we have rest together in the dust?”

Once again Job turns inward, decrying his life as being over, that his purposes in life have now all been lost, even the thoughts of his heart (i.e. all his dreams, desires, and plans) are no more, and will never be fulfilled (vs. 11). Job then decries his friends’ counsels by which they turn his very grievous state into something that he should be glad about or thankful for (vs. 12). Job now reasons against his own previous declarations of desiring the grave, for he now believes that even there he would find no rest nor peace nor consolation etc. Indeed Job asks himself, is there any hope there? Will he find any hope at the gates of Sheol, (i.e. the grave), or shall he find rest together in dust if he were to join his lost loved ones there? (vs. 13-16).

Scripture Quotations

New King James (1982): Thomas Nelson.