Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 16:2
I have heard many such things: miserable comforters [are] ye all.
2. many such things ] Job cannot help expressing his impatience of the sameness and the amount of his friends’ talk, and its uselessness or even worse.
miserable comforters ] The margin is, troublesome comforters, lit. comforters of trouble, whose comfort brings no ease but only more trouble. The words are a reply to the query of Eliphaz, Are the comforts of God too small for thee? Job 15:11. Their comforts were all founded on a false assumption of his guilt, and contained the condition of his repentance. Such words only increased his perplexity and misery.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Many such things – That is, either things fitted to provoke and irritate, or sentiments that are common-place. There was nothing new in what they said, and nothing to the purpose.
Miserable comforters – Compare Job 13:4. They had come professedly to condole with him. Now all that they said was adapted only to irritate, and to deepen his distress. He was disappointed; and he was deeply wounded and grieved.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 2. I have heard many such things] These sayings of the ancients are not strange to me; but they do not apply to my case: ye see me in affliction; ye should endeavour to console me. This ye do not; and yet ye pretend to do it! Miserable comforters are ye all.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
I have heard many such things; both from you, who do so odiously repeat the same things, and from divers others; for these things, though you pride and please yourselves in them, as if you had made some great and strange discoveries, are but vulgar and trivial.
Miserable comforters; instead of giving me those comforts which you pretend to do, Job 15:11, and which my condition loudly calls for, you feed me with terrors, and censures, and scoffs.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
2. (Job13:4).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
I have heard many such things,…. As those Eliphaz has been discoursing of, concerning the punishment of wicked men; many instances of this kind had been reported to him from his preceptors, and from his parents, and which they had had from theirs, as well as Eliphaz had from his; and he had heard these things, or such like, told “many times” from one to another, as Ben Gersom interprets it; or “frequently”, as the Vulgate Latin version, yea, he had heard them his friends say many things of this kind; so that there was nothing new delivered, nothing but what was “crambe millies cocta”, the same thing over and over again; insomuch that it was not only needless and useless, but nauseous and disagreeable, and was far from carrying any conviction with it, or tracing weight and influence upon him; that he only gave it the hearing, and that was all, and scarce with any patience, it being altogether inapplicable to him: that wicked men were punished for their sins, he did not deny; and that good men were also afflicted, was a very plain case; and that neither good nor hatred, or an interest in the favour of God or not, were not known by these things; nor could any such conclusion be fairly drawn, that because Job was afflicted, that therefore he was a bad man:
miserable comforters [are] ye all; his friends came to comfort him, and no doubt were sincere in their intentions; they took methods, as they thought, proper to answer such an end; and were so sanguine as to think their consolations were the consolations of God, according to his will; and bore hard upon Job for seeming to slight them, Job 15:11; to which Job here may have respect; but they were so far from administering divine consolation, that they were none at all, and worse than none; instead of yielding comfort, what they said added to his trouble and affliction; they were, as it may be rendered, “comforters of trouble”, or “troublesome comforters” k, which is what rhetoricians call an oxymoron; what they said, instead of relieving him, laid weights and heavy pressures upon him he could not bear; by suggesting his afflictions were for some enormous crime and secret sin that he lived in the commission of; and that he was no other than an hypocrite: and unless he repented and reformed, he could not expect it would be better with him; and this was the sentiment of them one and all: so to persons under a sense of sin, and distressed about the salvation of their souls, legal preachers are miserable comforters, who send them to a convicting, condemning, and cursing law, for relief; to their duties of obedience to it for peace, pardon, and acceptance with God; who decry the grace of God in man’s salvation, and cry up the works of men; who lay aside the person, blood, and righteousness of Christ, the consolation of Israel, and leave out the Spirit of God the Comforter in their discourses; and indeed all that can be said, or directed to, besides the consolation that springs from God by Christ, through the application of the Spirit, signifies nothing; for if any comfort could be had from any other, he would not be, as he is called, the God of all comfort; all the creatures and creature enjoyments, even the best are broken cisterns, and like the deceitful brooks Job compares his friends to, Job 6:15, that disappoint when any expectations of comfort are raised upon them.
k “consolatores molestiae”, Vatablus, Drusius, Mercerus, Cocceius, Schmidt, Michaelis; “molesti”, Beza, Junius Tremellius, Piscator, Codurcus, Tigurine version “molestissimi”, Schultens.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(2) I have heard many such things.Trite rather than true, or at least the whole truth.
Common is the common-place,
And vacant chaff well meant for grain.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
Exordium, or introductory strophe Job repudiates the commonplace, cheap, and heartless consolation of his friends, Job 16:2-5.
2. Miserable comforters Literally, Comforters of trouble: sorrow-bringing comforters. The Hebrew shows an allusion to Job 15:11, “the consolations of God.” Kindred experience, keenness of sensibility, a consciousness of our own liabilities, sincerity of heart and purity of being, are elements essential to the exercise of the fullest power of sympathy. As sin gains power over a man, it lessens his sympathy for the woes of others for sin means selfishness living for self. Cold words are a mockery to a sorrowing heart. They are flakes of snow to an ice-bound pool. “Profound sympathies are always in association with keen sensibilities.” The comforter must feel his own liability to overwhelming distress.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
“Handfuls of Purpose”
For All Gleaners
“I have heard many such things.” Job 16:2
Many unreflecting speeches are made respecting the religious life; also many superficial speeches; especially are many conjectural words uttered regarding human experience. There has been no lack of answers to the religious reed of man. Christianity takes its place amongst those answers, and must vindicate itself by the fulness and adequacy of its doctrines. The heart knows the right speech when it hears it. The heart is sated with foolish appeals. Take care of the answering voice which God has put within, and let its tones be well heard when appeals are made for the heart’s confidence. The answer of Christianity to the sorrow of the world is unique; it never can be classed amongst “many such things,” for it stands alone in boldness, compass, tenderness. All other religions have outworn themselves, in fruitless endeavours to give intelligent peace to the human mind; they have wrought apathy or stoicism, indifference, neglect, and even contempt, but profound and enlightened serenity is a miracle which they have never accomplished. The sorrow of the world is not a commonplace, and therefore it is not to be subdued or mitigated by commonplaces. When we speak of the sorrow of the world as a whole, we must remember that it is made up of individual distresses and agonies, and only that which applies to the individual can be applied effectually and happily to the whole world. Who has not heard of fate, or chance, or misfortune, or the necessity of things? Who has not been told, more or less carelessly, to be quiet, patient and hopeful? Who has not been reminded that others are suffering more than themselves? The sufferer may well reply: I have heard many such things, but they have no application to my particular need. When Jesus Christ comes to the heart it is impossible for the heart to say that many other speakers have said the same things in the same tone. Herein it is true, as everywhere else, “Never man spake like this Man.” We wonder at the gracious words which proceed out of his mouth: he needeth not that any should testify of man, for he knows what is in man. The distinctiveness of Christ’s appeals constitutes a strong claim for their divinity. David said of the sword of Goliath, “there is none like it”: so we say of the words of Jesus Christ; they are unrivalled in sublimity, pathos, and simplicity. He who has heard Christ with the attention of his heart can never forget the gracious eloquence and the infinite wisdom of the divine speaker. Go to Christ for yourselves: this Man still receiveth sinners. We read that the disciples went and told Jesus what had happened in an hour of calamity; we must go on the same errand, tell him everything, speak to him every day, and take no step which he does not sanction or accompany.
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
Job 16:2 I have heard many such things: miserable comforters [are] ye all.
Ver. 2. I have heard many such things ] Heard them over and over, till I am even sated and nauseated, Vexatus toties rauci; q.d. Your sayings are superfluous, your proofs insufficient; you produce nothing new, nothing but what is trivial, and of very common observation. Haec sex centies audivi, Mine ears are grated and grieved with these unnecessary repetitions, only reinforced with greater bitterness; which, as it addeth nothing at all to the weight of your words, so it causeth me to add this,
Miserable comforters are ye all
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
miserable = wearisome.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
heard: Job 6:6, Job 6:25, Job 11:2, Job 11:3, Job 13:5, Job 19:2, Job 19:3, Job 26:2, Job 26:3, Jam 1:19
miserable: or, troublesome, Job 13:4, Psa 69:26, Phi 1:16
Reciprocal: Est 6:13 – but shalt surely Job 2:11 – to comfort Job 15:3 – he reason Job 18:2 – How long Job 21:2 – let this be Job 21:34 – comfort Psa 69:20 – comforters Psa 108:12 – for vain Mat 27:4 – see
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Job 16:2. I have heard many such things Both from you and divers others; and though you please yourselves with them, as if you had some great and important discoveries, they are but vulgar and trivial things. Miserable comforters are ye all Instead of giving me those comforts which you pretend to do, or offering any thing to alleviate my affliction, you only add to it, and make it yet more grievous. What Job says here of his friends is true of all creatures in comparison with God; at one time or other, we shall be made to see and acknowledge, that miserable comforters are they all. To a soul under deep conviction of sin, or the arrests of death, nothing but a manifestation of the favour of God, and the consolatory influences of his Spirit, can yield effectual comfort.