Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 17:1

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

1. my breath ] Rather as margin, my spirit is spent, i. e. consumed. The “spirit” is the principle of life.

the graves are ready for me ] lit. graves are mine; the meaning being: the grave is my portion; cf. Job 17:13 seq. Coverdale: I am harde at deathes dore.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Ch. Job 16:18 to Job 17:9. Job, dying a martyr’s death, beseeches God that He would uphold his right with God and against men, and give him a pledge that He will make his innocence appear

In Job 16:12-14 Job described the terrible hostility of God, who dashed him to pieces, laid him in ruins and poured out his soul to the ground brought him unto death. Then the other thought rose in his mind that all this befell him though he was innocent both in life and in spirit. Here he comes to the point at which he always loses self-control when he realizes that in spite of his innocence he is held guilty. This is an overwhelming feeling, and under it Job either wildly challenges the rectitude of God, as in the first cycle of speeches; or he flings off from him altogether the form of things in the present world, and forces his way into another region, where such perversions cannot prevail and where the face of God, clouded here, must be clear and propitious. This second direction, entered upon first in ch. 14, is pursued in the present passage, and reaches its highest point in ch. 19. Already in ch. 10. Job had drawn a distinction between God of the present, who persecuted him as guilty though he was innocent, and God of the past, whose gracious care of him had been wonderful; though there he grasped at a frightful reconciliation of the contradiction: God of the present, who destroyed him, seemed the real God, and His past mercies were no true expression of His nature (see on Job 10:13 seq.). In ch. 14. Job reached out his hand into the darkness and clutched at another idea, a distinction between God of the present who would pursue him unto death, and God of the future God when His anger should be over-past and He would yearn again towards His creature, the work of His hands (see on Job 14:13 seq.). This God of the future was God as He is in truth, true to His own past dealing and to man’s conceptions of Him. It is on this line of thought that the present passage moves.

The two great ideas which fill Job’s mind in all this discourse are, first, the certainty of his speedy death under God’s afflicting hand; and second, the moral infamy and the inexplicable contradiction to his conscience which death in such circumstances carries with it. The first, his speedy death, Job accepts as inevitable, and he cannot restrain his contemptuous indignation at the foolishness of his friends, who talk as if something else were possible (Job 17:2-4; Job 17:10-16). But such a death under the hand of God meant to Job the reprobation of God and the scorn and abhorrence of men. And it is against this idea, not his mere death, that Job wrestles with all his might. This is the meaning of such a death; but it cannot be that God will allow this obloquy and injustice to overwhelm His innocent creature for ever. His blood will utter a ceaseless cry for reparation. And even now he has in heaven one who will witness to his innocence. And he prays to God that He would maintain his right with God and against men.

It is impossible to escape the conclusion that Job prays or hopes for this vindication not before but after death. For he contemplates dying an unjust death his blood will cry for vengeance. His present unjust afflictions will bring him to the grave. But these fatal afflictions are just God’s witness to his guilt. Any interference of God, therefore, to declare his innocence cannot take place in this life, for an intervention of God to declare his innocence, all the while that He continued to declare him guilty by His afflictions, could not occur to Job’s mind.

The passage Job 16:18 to Job 17:9 embraces two sections similar to one another, each of which contains a fervent appeal to God, followed by words which support it, Job 16:18 to Job 17:2, and Job 17:3-9.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

22 17:2. What Job sought with tears was that God would cause his innocence to be acknowledged by God, and made manifest against men. Now he adds words in support of his prayer, or gives the reason for it. He so prays, for here in this life he has no hope of restoration. God’s anger will pursue him to the grave, which is already his portion.

16:22. For a few years shall come,

And I shall go the way whence I shall not return!

17:1. My spirit is spent,

My days are extinct.

The grave is ready for me!

17:2. Surely mockeries encompass me,

And mine eye must dwell on their provocation!

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

My breath is corrupt – Margin or spirit is spent. The idea is, that his vital powers were nearly extinct; his breath failed; his power was weakened, and he was ready to die. This is connected with the previous chapter, and should not have been separated from it. There was no necessity of making a new chapter here, and we have one of those unfortunate breaks in the middle of a paragraph, and almost of a sentence, which are too common in the Scriptures.

The graves are ready for me – The Hebrew is plural, but why so used I know not. The Vulgate is singular – sepulchrum. The Septuagint renders it, I pray for a tomb (singular, taphes), but I cannot obtain it. Possibly the meaning is, I am about to be united to the graves, or to tombs. Schultens remarks that the plural form is common in Arabic poetry, as well as in poetry in general.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

CHAPTER XVII

Job complains of the injustice of his friends, and compares his

present state of want and wo with his former honour and

affluence, 1-6.

God’s dealings with him will ever astonish upright men; yet the

righteous shall not be discouraged, but hold on his way, 7-9.

Asserts that there is not a wise man among his friends, and

that he has no expectation but of a speedy death, 10-16.

NOTES ON CHAP. XVII

Verse 1. My breath is corrupt] Rather, My spirit is oppressed, ruchi chubbalah: My days are extinct, and the sepulchral cells are ready for me. – PARKHURST. There is probably a reference here to cemeteries, where were several niches, in each of which a corpse was deposited. See on Job 17:16.

For chubbalah, corrupted or oppressed, some MSS. have chalah, is made weak; and one has is worn down, consumed: this is agreeable to the Vulgate, Spiritus meus attenuebatur; “My spirit is exhausted.”

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

My breath is corrupt, i.e. it stinks, as it doth in dying persons. Or, my spirit is corrupted, or spent, or lost, i.e. my vital spirits and natural powers are wasted; my soul is ready to leave the body.

My days are extinct; the lamp of my life is wasted, and upon the point of going out, and that in a snuff.

The graves, i.e. the grave; the plural number being put for the singular, as sepulchres, 2Ch 21:20, cities, Jdg 12:7, asses, Zec 9:9, are put for one of each of these.

Are ready for me; open their mouths as ready to receive me. The sense and scope of this verse is the same with the former.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

1. breath . . . corruptresultof elephantiasis. But UMBREIT,”my strength (spirit) is spent.”

extinctLife iscompared to an expiring light. “The light of my day isextinguished.”

gravesplural, toheighten the force.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

My breath is corrupt,…. Through the force of his disease, which made it have an ill smell, so that it was strange and disagreeable to his wife, Job 19:17; passing through his lungs, or other parts, which were affected with some disorder, or as frequently is the case of dying persons, and so Job thought himself to be. The word n used has the signification of pain, even of the pains of a woman in travail; and so may signify, that Job drew his breath with great pain, as people troubled with an asthma do, or dying persons in the hiccups, or just fetching their last breath; or “my spirit” o, as it may be rendered, that is, his vital spirits which were exhausted and spent, there were scarce any left in him; or “my mind” p, or soul, which was overwhelmed with grief, and so disturbed, that he was not himself, but in a manner distracted with the terrors of God, and the severity of his hand upon him:

my days are extinct; here Job corrects himself; he had spoken of a few years before, but it is as if he should say now, why do I talk of a few years, when I have but a few days to live, and even those are as good as gone? meaning not only his days of prosperity, which were at an entire end, as he thought, but the days of his natural life; the lamp of life was almost burnt out, the oil was spent, the wick was just extinguished, it was like the snuff of a candle going out:

the graves [are ready] for me; the place of his fathers’ sepulchres, the burial place of his ancestors, where many graves were; or he may have respect to various things into which the dead are put, as into so many graves; as besides their being rolled up in linen, as was the way of the eastern countries, there was the coffin, a sort of a grave, and which sometimes was made of stone; and then the place dug in the earth, more properly called the grave, and often over that a sepulchral monument was erected; so that there was grave upon grave. Job does not seem to have any respect to the usage of kings, and great personages, preparing stately monuments for themselves while living, such as the pyramids of Egypt, built by and for their kings, as is supposed; for the words “are ready” are not in the text, only supplied, though they are also by the Targum; they are very short and significant in the original text, “the graves for me”, or they are mine; the grave is my property, my house, where I expect shortly to be, and there to abide and dwell until the resurrection, and which was desirable to him; “a grave to me”; that is all that I desire, or can expect; here he wished to be, as he did not doubt he quickly should be; and it is as if he should say, I am ready for that, and so Jarchi paraphrases it; and happy is the man that is ready for the grave, for death, and eternity, for the coming of his Lord, having the grace of God wrought in him, and the righteousness of his living Redeemer on him, which was Job’s case; such an one shall go into the nuptial chamber at once, and be received into everlasting habitations.

n Pineda. o “spiritus meus”, V. L. Pagninus, Montanus, Junius & Tremellius, &c. p “Anima mea”, Piscator, Schmidt.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

1 My breath is corrupt,

My days are extinct,

The graves are ready for me.

2 Truly mockery surrounds me,

And mine eye shall loiter over their disputings.

Hirz., Hlgst., and others, wrongly consider the division of the chapter here to be incorrect. The thought in Job 16:22 is really a concluding thought, like Job 10:20., Job 7:21. Then in Job 17:1 another strain is taken up; and as Job 16:22 is related, as a confirmation, to the request expressed in Job 16:19-21, so Job 17:1, Job 17:2 are related to that expressed in Job 17:3. The connection with the conclusion of Job 16 is none the less close: the thoughts move on somewhat crosswise ( chiastisch). We do not translate with Ewald: “My spirit is destroyed,” because (here and Isa 10:27) signifies not, to be destroyed, but, to be corrupted, disturbed, troubled; not the spirit (after Arab. chbl , usually of disturbance of spirit), but the breath is generally meant, which is become short (Job 7:15) and offensive (Job 19:17), announcing suffocation and decay as no longer far distant. In Job 17:1 the . . is equivalent to , found elsewhere. In Job 17:1 is used as if the dead were called, Arab. ssachib el – kubur , grave-companions. He is indeed one who is dying, from whom the grave is but a step distant, and still the friends promise him long life if he will only repent! This is the mockery which is with him, i.e., surrounds him, as he affirms, Job 17:1. A secondary verb, , is formed from the Hiph. (of which we had the non-syncopated form of the fut. in Job 13:9), the Piel of which occurs in 1Ki 18:27 of Elijah’s derision of the priests of Baal, and from this is formed the pluralet. (or, according to another reading, , with the same doubling of the as in , deceitful things, Isa 30:10; comp. the same thing in Job 33:7, , their lions of God = heroes), which has the meaning foolery, – a meaning questioned by Hirz. without right, – in which the idea of deceit and mockery are united. Gecatilia and Ralbag take it as a part.: mockers; Stick., Wolfson, Hahn: deluded; but the analogy of , , and the like, speaks in favour of taking it as a substantive. is affirmative (Ges. 155, 2, f). Ewald renders it as expressive of desire: if only not (Hlgst.: dummodo ne ); but this signification (Ew. 329, b) cannot be supported. On the other hand, it might be intended interrogatively (as Job 30:25): annon illusiones mecum (Rosenm.); but this , corresponding to the second member of a disjunctive question, has no right connection in the preceding. We therefore prefer the affirmative meaning, and explain it like Job 22:20; Job 31:36, comp. Job 2:5. Truly what he continually hears, i.e., from the side of the friends, is only false and delusive utterances, which consequently sound to him like jesting and mockery. The suff. in Job 17:2 refers to them. (with Dag. dirimens, which renders the sound of the word more pathetic, as Job 9:18; Joe 1:17, and in the Hiph. form , Isa 33:1), elsewhere generally (Jos 1:18 only excepted) of rebellion against God, denotes here the contradictory, quarrelsome bearing of the friends, not the dispute in itself (comp. Arab. mry , III. to attack, VI. to contend with another), but coming forward controversially; only to this is suitable. must not be taken as = here; Ewald’s translation, “only let not mine eye come against their irritation,” forces upon this verb, which always signifies to murmur, , a meaning foreign to it, and one that does not well suit it here. The voluntative form = (here not the pausal form, as Jdg 19:20, comp. 2Sa 17:16) quite accords with the sense: mine eye shall linger on their janglings; it shall not look on anything that is cheering, but be held fast by this cheerless spectacle, which increases his bodily suffering and his inward pain. From these comforters, who are become his adversaries, Job turns in supplication to God.

Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament

Deplorable Condition of Job; The Improvement of Job’s Troubles.

B. C. 1520.

      1 My breath is corrupt, my days are extinct, the graves are ready for me.   2 Are there not mockers with me? and doth not mine eye continue in their provocation?   3 Lay down now, put me in a surety with thee; who is he that will strike hands with me?   4 For thou hast hid their heart from understanding: therefore shalt thou not exalt them.   5 He that speaketh flattery to his friends, even the eyes of his children shall fail.   6 He hath made me also a byword of the people; and aforetime I was as a tabret.   7 Mine eye also is dim by reason of sorrow, and all my members are as a shadow.   8 Upright men shall be astonied at this, and the innocent shall stir up himself against the hypocrite.   9 The righteous also shall hold on his way, and he that hath clean hands shall be stronger and stronger.

      Job’s discourse is here somewhat broken and interrupted, and he passes suddenly from one thing to another, as is usual with men in trouble; but we may reduce what is here said to three heads:–

      I. The deplorable condition which poor Job was now in, which he describes, to aggravate the great unkindness of his friends to him and to justify his own complaints. Let us see what his case was.

      1. He was a dying man, v. 1. He had said (ch. xvi. 22), “When a few years have come, I shall go that long journey.” But here he corrects himself. “Why do I talk of years to come? Alas! I am just setting out on that journey, am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. My breath is already corrupt, or broken off; my spirits are spent; I am a gone man.” It is good for every one of us thus to look upon ourselves as dying, and especially to think of it when we are sick. We are dying, that is, (1.) Our life is going; for the breath of life is going. It is continually going forth; it is in our nostrils (Isa. ii. 22), the door at which it entered (Gen. ii. 7); there it is upon the threshold, ready to depart. Perhaps Job’s distemper obstructed his breathing, and short breath will, after a while, be no breath. Let the Anointed of the Lord be the breath of our nostrils, and let us get spiritual life breathed into us, and that breath will never be corrupted. (2.) Our time is ending: My days are extinct, are put out, as a candle which, from the first lighting, is continually wasting and burning down, and will by degrees burn out of itself, but may by a thousand accidents be extinguished. Such is life. It concerns us therefore carefully to redeem the days of time, and to spend them in getting ready for the days of eternity, which will never be extinct. (3.) We are expected in our long home: The graves are ready for me. But would not one grave serve? Yes, but 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,” graves in consort, the congregation of the dead. Wherever we go there is but a step between us and the grave. Whatever is unready, that is ready; it is a bed soon made. If the graves be ready for us, it concerns us to be ready for the graves. The graves for me (so it runs), denoting not only his expectation of death, but his desire of it. “I have done with the world, and have nothing now to wish for but a grave.”

      2. He was a despised man (v. 6): “He” (that is, Eliphaz, so some, or rather God, whom he all along acknowledges to be the author of his calamities) “has made me a byword of the people, the talk of the country, a laughing-stock to many, a gazing-stock to all; and aforetime (or to men’s faces, publicly) I was as a tabret, that whoever chose might play upon.” They made ballads of him; his name became a proverb; it is so still, As poor as Job. “He has now made me a byword,” a reproach of men, whereas, aforetime, in my prosperity, I was as a tabret, delici humani generis–the darling of the human race, whom they were all pleased with. It is common for those who were honoured in their wealth to be despised in their poverty.

      3. He was a man of sorrows, v. 7. He wept so much that he had almost lost his sight: My eye is dim by reason of sorrow, ch. xvi. 16. The sorrow of the world thus works darkness and death. He grieved so much that he had fretted all the flesh away and become a perfect skeleton, nothing but skin and bones: “All my members are as a shadow. I have become so poor and thin that I am not to be called a man, but the shadow of a man.“

      II. The ill use which his friends made of his miseries. They trampled upon him, and insulted over him, and condemned him as a hypocrite, because he was thus grievously afflicted. Hard usage! Now observe,

      1. How Job describes it, and what construction he puts upon their discourses with him. He looks upon himself as basely abused by them. (1.) They abused him with their foul censures, condemning him as a bad man, justly reduced thus and exposed to contempt, v. 2. “They are mockers, who deride my calamities, and insult over me, because I am thus brought low. They are so with me, abusing me to my face, pretending friendship in their visit, but intending mischief. I cannot get clear of them; they are continually tearing me, and they will not be wrought upon, either by reason or pity, to let fall the prosecution.” (2.) They abused him too with their fair promises, for in them they did but banter him. He reckons them (v. 5) among those that speak flattery to their friends. They all came to mourn with him. Eliphaz began with a commendation of him, ch. iv. 3. They had all promised him that he would be happy if he would take their advice. Now all this he looked upon as flattery, and as designed to vex him so much the more. All this he calls their provocation, v. 2. They did what they could to provoke him and then condemned him for his resentment of it; but he thinks himself excusable when his eye continued thus in their provocation: it never ceased, and he never could look off it. Note, The unkindness of those that trample upon their friends in affliction, that banter and abuse them then, is enough to try, if not to tire, the patience even of Job himself.

      2. How he condemns it. (1.) It was a sign that God had hidden their heart from understanding (v. 4), and that in this matter they were infatuated, and their wonted wisdom had departed from them. Wisdom is a gift of God, which he grants to some and withholds from others, grants at some times and withholds at other times. Those that are void of compassion are so far void of understanding. Where there is not the tenderness of a man one may question whether there be the understanding of a man. (2.) It would be a lasting reproach and diminution to them: Therefore shalt thou not exalt them. Those are certainly kept back from honour whose hearts are hidden from understanding. When God infatuates men he will abase them. Surely those who discover so little acquaintance with the methods of Providence shall not have the honour of deciding this controversy! That is reserved for a man of better sense and better temper, such a one as Elihu afterwards appeared to be. (3.) It would entail a curse upon their families. He that thus violates the sacred laws of friendship forfeits the benefit of it, not only for himself, but for his posterity: “Even the eyes of his children shall fail, and, when they look for succour and comfort from their own and their father’s friends, they shall look in vain as I have done, and be as much disappointed as I am in you.” Note, Those that wrong their neighbours may thereby, in the end, wrong their own children more than they are aware of.

      3. How he appeals from them to God (v. 3): Lay down now, put me in a surety with thee, that is, “Let me be assured that God will take the hearing and determining of the cause into his own hands, and I desire no more. Let some one engage for God to bring on this matter.” Thus those whose hearts condemn them not have confidence towards God, and can with humble and believing boldness beg of him to search and try them. Some make Job here to glance at the mediation of Christ, for he speaks of a surety with God, without whom he durst not appear before God, nor try his cause at his bar; for, though his friends’ accusations of him were utterly false, yet he could not justify himself before God but in a mediator. Our English annotations give this reading of the verse: “Appoint, I pray thee, my surety with thee, namely, Christ who is with thee in heaven, and has undertaken to be my surety let him plead my cause, and stand up for me; and who is he then that will strike upon my hand?” that is, “Who dares then contend with me? Who shall lay any thing to my charge if Christ be an advocate for me?” Rom 8:32; Rom 8:33. Christ is the surety of the better testament (Heb. vii. 22), a surety of God’s appointing; and, if he undertake for us, we need not fear what can be done against us.

      III. The good use which the righteous should make of Job’s afflictions from God, from his enemies, and from his friends, Job 17:8; Job 17:9. Observe here,

      1. How the saints are described. (1.) They are upright men, honest and sincere, and that act from a steady principle, with a single eye. This was Job’s own character (ch. i. 1), and probably he speaks of such upright men especially as had been his intimates and associates. (2.) They are the innocent, not perfectly so, but innocence is what they aim at and press towards. Sincerity is evangelical innocency, and those that are upright are said to be innocent from the great transgression, Ps. xix. 13. (3.) They are the righteous, who walk in the way of righteousness. (4.) They have clean hands, kept clean from the gross pollutions of sin, and, when spotted with infirmities, washed with innocency, Ps. xxvi. 6.

      2. How they should be affected with the account of Job’s troubles. Great enquiry, no doubt, would be made concerning him, and every one would speak of him and his case; and what use will good people make of it? (1.) It will amaze them: Upright men shall be astonished at this; they will wonder to hear that so good a man as Job should be so grievously afflicted in body, name, and estate, that God should lay his hand so heavily upon him, and that his friends, who ought to have comforted him, should add to his grief, that such a remarkable saint should be such a remarkable sufferer, and so useful a man laid aside in the midst of his usefulness; what shall we say to these things? Upright men, though satisfied in general that God is wise and holy in all he does, yet cannot but be astonished at such dispensations of Providence, paradoxes which will not be unfolded till the mystery of God shall be finished. (2.) It will animate them. Instead of being deterred from and discouraged in the service of God, by the hard usage which this faithful servant of God met with, they shall be so much the more emboldened to proceed and persevere in it. That which was St. Paul’s care (1 Thess. iii. 3) was Job’s, that no good man should be moved, either from his holiness or his comfort, by these afflictions, that none should, for the sake hereof, think the worse of the ways or work of God. And that which was St. Paul’s comfort was his too, that the brethren in the Lord would wax confident by his bonds, Phil. i. 14. They would hereby be animated, [1.] To oppose sin and to confront the corrupt and pernicious inferences which evil men would draw from Job’s sufferings, as that God has forsaken the earth, that it is in vain to serve him, and the like: The innocent shall stir up himself against the hypocrite, will not bear to hear this (Rev. ii. 2), but will withstand him to his face, will stir up himself to search into the meaning of such providences and study these hard chapters, that he may read them readily, will stir up himself to maintain religion’s just but injured cause against all its opposers. Note, The boldness of the attacks which profane people make upon religion should sharpen the courage and resolution of its friends and advocates. It is time to stir when proclamation is made in the gate of the camp, Who is on the Lord’s side? When vice is daring it is no time for virtue, through fear, to hide itself. [2.] To persevere in religion. The righteous, instead of drawing back, or so much as starting back, at this frightful spectacle, or standing still to deliberate whether he should proceed or no (allude to 2 Sam. ii. 23), shall with so much the more constancy and resolution hold on his way and press forward. “Though in me he foresees that bonds and afflictions abide him, yet none of these things shall move him,” Acts xx. 24. Those who keep their eye upon heaven as their end will keep their feet in the paths of religion as their way, whatever difficulties and discouragements they meet with in it [3.] In order thereunto to grow in grace. He will not only hold on his way notwithstanding, but will grow stronger and stronger. By the sight of other good men’s trials, and the experience of his own, he will be made more vigorous and lively in his duty, more warm and affectionate, more resolute and undaunted; the worse others are the better he will be; that which dismays others emboldens him. The blustering wind makes the traveller gather his cloak the closer about him and gird it the faster. Those that are truly wise and good will be continually growing wiser and better. Proficiency in religion is a good sign of sincerity in it.

Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary

JOB – CHAPTER 17

JOB’S REPLY TO ELIPHAZ CONTINUED

Verses 1-16: .

Verse 1 is a further lament of Job that breath is corrupt, meaning his spirit is broken. He states that his days are extinct, like a light that has burned out; and he adds that the graves, (plural) to heighten the force, await his soon coming, Psa 88:3-4; Psa 31:12; Psa 42:7.

Verse 2 adds “are there not mockers with me?” instead of friends who show compassion? Job further asks if his age does not continue in their provocation. Are not his pretended friends repeatedly “poking” him, gouging him in the eye, provoking him with their unkind and unfounded accusations? he inquires, 1Sa 1:6. They were.

Verse 3 is a direct address of Job to the Lord to “laydown,” or become his pledge of security of his innocence, since his pretended friends had become his prodding adversaries. Ancient litigating parties had to lay down a sum before a trial. Job asks who it is that will strike hands with him, be his mediator-friend in his trial? Who, other than God, could do this for me? Job asks, Psa 119:122; Pro 6:1; Pro 17:18; Pro 22:26; Heb 7:22.

Verse 4 declares that the Lord had surely hid or withheld their heart (affections and intellect) of his friends from comprehending truth. Therefore he calls upon the Lord not to exalt them, or permit them to conquer in their dogged condemnations against him, Isa 6:9-10.

Verse 5 declares that one who engaged in, delivered up flattery to his friends, even the eyes of his children shall fail, as a matter of just, legal retribution, in the lives of his offspring, Exo 20:5; Gal 6:7-8.

Verse 6 declares that God has made him (Job) to be a byword of the people, as if he had been a superlative sinner, to earn the calamity and affliction that had come to him, Deu 28:37; Psa 69:11. And before the people he had now, with the accusations of his feigned friends, become as a tabret, an object of disgust, to be spit upon, in the face, Num 12:14; Mat 5:22.

Verse 7 adds that Job’s eye or vision was dim by reason of his deep and extended sorrow. And all his members, the members of his body, and even his thoughts, had come to be as a shadow, weakened and dim. For when one member suffers, all suffer, or are affected hurtfully, 1Co 12:26; Psa 6:7; Deu 34:7.

Verse 8 contends that “upright” men should be astonished at his unmerited suffering, especially as attributed to hypocrisy and concealed sin in his life, as held by the three friends. An upright person, falsely accused, can but feel indignantly toward his false accusers. This was Job’s contention, because the most wicked prospered, as well as the righteous; And that without suffering as he had suffered. The innocent so accused should be stirred up against his ungodly, hypocritical accusers Job asserts, as he perhaps “eye-balled” these feigned wise friends, as set forth Psalms 37, 83.

Verse 9 declares that the truly righteous person would hold faith in God through all his misfortune. From the example of Job’s suffering and victory the afflicted should not grow bitter. The one who suffers with “clean hands,” being innocent of any grave sin, should gain courage, like a warrior, a soldier in battle, till the victory is won, Isa 40:30-31; Php_1:14. See also Psa 81:7; Psa 81:11; Pro 4:18; Pro 14:16; 1Pe 1:5; 1Jn 2:19; Psa 24:4; Psa 26:5.

Verse 10 addresses the three pretended friends of Job. He advises them that in spite of their proverbial platitudes, and feigned wisdom in their wave after wave of speeches of folly, he cannot detect a wise one among them, Job 6:29. So, like Paul later advised, he received their babbling as one should that of a moron. He tolerated it, but did not let it be his guide, 1Co 3:18-20; Job 5:13.

Verses 11, 12 recount Job’s lament that his life was fast ebbing away, was almost gone, his days were nigh end, broken off as the threads of a bolt of cloth are cut off from the loom, Isa 38:12. Even the thoughts of his heart, his fondest hopes, former days have now faded and gone, as possession from his soul, Job 7:6; Job 9:25; Isa 38:10. He adds that “they,” his friends, would change the night into day, telling him that prosperity and light would return to him, if he would only confess guilt and hypocrisy he did not have. His view was that the light of life was now short, because of fast falling shadows of darkness, Job 13:4.

Verses 13, 14 is a statement of the mind of Job in his weakening condition. He would not give up on God or quietly accept the wrong advice of his friends. He asserted that if he waited, became weakly resigned to death without protest, he would be saying to corruption that it was his father and to the devouring worms they were his mother and his sister. He would be thereby making his own bed, grave in the darkness of his own house or residence. He was resolved to trust God and live on through his affliction, though the Lord should slay him, Job 13:15; Pro 3:3-5.

Verse 15 asks where Job’s hope existed, in his present state. If there was future hope for his prosperity, on what could it be based, he inquired, Job 11:18; For “hope deferred makes the heart sick,” Pro 13:12.

Verse 16 concludes that the kind of hope his feigned friends held out to him, future prosperity if he would confess sins he did not have, would surely go down to the bars of the pit, to rest with his polluted body in the grave. God was too righteous to demand that he confess wickedness and hypocrisy of which he was not guilty, was his conclusion. The hope these friends held out for him was empty, no grounds for hope at all, he concluded, 2Co 1:9; Job 2:6; Job 3:17. Yet there is hope for the trusting soul, Psa 39:7; Psa 119:116; Col 1:27; Heb 6:18-19; 1Jn 3:3.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

JOBS FOURTH ANSWER

Job 16, 17.

IF one had a sense of the ludicrous he would not only listen to this ardent debate, but he would be compelled to laugh in the very midst of it. Perhaps no more serious debate ever engaged the tongues of men, and no more difficult problem was ever discussed than the problem of human pain. It is the problem of the centuries, of the millenniums, and to this day remains unsolved. It is doubtful indeed if it ever had as intelligent a discussion as is recorded in the Book of Job. That is why the Book of Job lives.

In the nature of the case there can be no claim of inspiration on the part of these comforters, and it is not even essential that one claim inerrancy in the arguments of Job. The Bible nowhere maintains that everything found in it is true to fact. The intelligent advocates of verbal inspiration maintain rather that the record given is absolutely true, and even inerrant, but that true record may involve the report of misconceptions, false arguments, fallacious reasonings; yea, even with infidelity and atheism, but the report is true.

Now, the fun here is akin at least to the pleasure that brutal men derive from prize fights, and all men, even regenerate men, have more or less of the natural left over and left in them. The fun here is the fun of seeing the sick man rally and return to the attack every time, and in spite of his weakness, affliction and indescribable suffering, parry every blow and send his antagonists reeling against the

ropes, so that instead of taking the count as in the prize fight ring, they rest and seek mental recuperation, while their good seconds sally forth to confront the intellectual Samson.

In these chapters Job himself shows heat. The dear man has taken so many blows that they have roused him, and instead of putting him out of commission they have strengthened his good right arm, and he strikes more snappily and effectively than ever.

JOB CONDEMNS HIS COMFORTERS

He properly names them miserable comforters.

Then Job answered and said,

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

Shall vain words have an end? or what emboldeneth thee that thou answerest? (Job 16:1-3).

He contrasts his humane character with their cruel conduct.

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

But I would strengthen you with my mouth, and the moving of my lips would asswage your grief (Job 16:4-5).

He replies to their possible sympathy by a grief unassuaged.

Though I speak, my grief is not as swaged: and though I forbear, what am I eased? (Job 16:6).

JOB BELIEVES GOD IS BACK OF HIS AFFLICTION

He mistakes Satans work for Gods will.

But now He hath made me weary: Thou hast made desolate all my company.

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

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

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

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

I 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.

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

He breaketh me with breach upon breach, he runneth upon me like a giant (Job 16:7-14).

Here let us remark in passing, this is the most common of all misconceptions. Nine-tenths of our Christian people, owing to poor Biblical instruction, believe that sickness, suffering, sorrow and bereavement are all from God. The Book of Job was evidently written to show the fallacy of that philosophy. Smiting is Gods strange work in which He seldom indulges. It is Satans daily delight.

It was Satan, not God, who sent the Sabeans to rob this rich man, and slay his servants with the sword. It was Satan who burned up the sheep and the servants by a lightning flash from Heaven, since he is the prince of the power of the air. It was Satan who put it into the heart of the Chaldeans to carry them away and slay their defenders. It was Satan who put it into the hearts of sons and daughters to eat and drink, and who in the midst of their bacchanalian feast, smote the four corners of the house with a cyclone and crushed and killed, and it was Satan who went forth from the presence of the Lord, and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown.

With what injustice men treat a compassionate God when they assign all manner of sorrow and afflictions and griefs to Him, who is love.

Job vainly defends his own character against charges.

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

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

Not for any injustice in mine hands: also my prayer is pure (Job 16:15-17).

It is this approach to self-exaltation; it is this near declaration of Pharisaism that constantly irritates his comforters, and with fair occasion. There is no man among us who is well balanced in intellect, well instructed in Scripture, and is in vital contact with the Holy Spirit, who can enjoy, or even endure from his fellow-men, or dare exercise himself in, the speech of braggartism.

We know too well that even when sackcloth is upon us and we are humbled to the dust, and our faces are foul with weeping, and on our eyelids is the shadow of death, we are still incapable of saying truthfully, There is no injustice in my hands, and my prayer is pure.

He yearns for a successful intercessor.

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

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

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

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

When a few years are come, then I shall go the way whence I shall not return (Job 16:18-22).

The very character of this debate produces in Jobs life apparently contradictory statements and sentiments. Any man under attack from his fellows whom he knows to be sinners is tempted to self-defense, for unwittingly he institutes and maintains a comparison between them and himself, and he need not suffer by the comparison. However, the moment he turns from such a comparison to look at God, humiliation and shame smite him, and like Job, he feels the necessity of an intercessor, of one that could plead for him with God as a man pleadeth for his neighbor, of one who could be more effective before the Father than the favorable record of conduct, or even the tears of contrition.

JOB BEGS FOR SOME RELIEF Chapter 17.

First, he appeals to the grave for rest.

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

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

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

For Thou hast hid their heart from understanding: therefore shalt Thou not exalt them (Job 17:1-4).

Then he appeals to his enemies for commiseration.

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

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

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

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

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

But as for you all, do ye return, and come now: for I cannot find one wise man among you (Job 17:5-10).

And finally even calls upon corruption to assist him.

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

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

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

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

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

They shall go down to the bars of the pit, when our rest together is in the dust (Job 17:11-16).

Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley

CONTINUATION OF JOBS REPLY TO ELIPHAZ

I. Bemoans his dying condition (Job. 17:1).

My breath is corrupt (or, my spirit or vital energy is destroyed), my days are extinct (or, extinguished, as a lamp or taper whose flame is expiring), the graves are ready for me (or, the place of graves, or chambers of the tomb, are destined for me,Heb., are for me, or, are mine). Job takes a calm but gloomy view of his condition. Now views himself always as a dying man. Speaks the language of deep despondency. Vital powers exhausted. Energy of spirit broken. The lamp of life all but extinguished. His only expected home the grave. This mentioned now

(1) As his reason for desiring to have his case speedily tried and his character vindicated;
(2) In opposition to the flattering prospect held out by his friends as the result of his repentance. Observe
1. Good for us frequently to take a calm view of our condition as mortal and dying men. Philip of Macedon kept a person for the sole purpose of daily reminding him of his mortality. Sad to be surprised by the summons of death, like the rich fool (Luk. 12:20). A good man, able, like Job, to chant his own dirge, both in the midst of lifes joys and sorrows.

2. True in reference to each what Job says of himself

The graves are ready for me.

(1) Death is appointed to us. The lot of all but those who shall be living at the Lords appearing. The sentence of death entailed on Adams offspring as well as himself (Rom. 5:12). Death an enemy which all have to meet. No discharge in that war. The grave the home appointed for all living. Death a visitor whom no wealth can bribe, no power resist, no artifice elude.

(2) Death is near to us. But a step between me and death. Death or the Lords appearing not far from each of us. The grave probably much nearer both to reader and writer than to Job, when uttering these words. Job after this lived a hundred and forty years. Our entire life probably not more than half this amount. Where is to-morrow? In another world. For numbers this is certain. Death probably much nearer to us than we think. Uses to be made of this fact:(i.) To make careful preparation for death. While the body enters the grave the spirit enters the invisible and eternal world. Prepare to meet thy God.(ii.). To make right use of time while it lasts. Much to be done, and but a short time to do it in (Ecc. 9:10).

(3). To sit loose to the things of a present world. The world to be used, but not abused or used eagerly as if our all (1Co. 7:29). Why all this toil for triumphs of an hour?(iv.). To examine faithfully our views and prospects in regard to the grave. How do I regard it? With comfort or with dread? Is the prospect of it a gloomy or a pleasant one? To the believer to die is gain, because to depart is to be with Christ. To Him, the grave is only a dark lattice letting in eternal day, the avenue

To festive bowers,

Where nectars sparkle, angels minister,
And more than angels share.

Am I prepared for my final resting-place? Are my accounts made straight with God? Am I at peace with my Maker? Are my sins cancelled with the blood of Jesus?

II. Job complains of the conduct of his friends (Job. 17:2).

Are there not mockers (or mockings) with me? Doth not mine eye continue (Heb., remain all night) in their provocation? Cutting words and cruel reproaches not easily banished. What the eye sees and the ear hears by day, the thoughts dwell upon by night. Such, with Job, the unkind looks and bitter words of those who should now have been his comfort. These things now his sorrowful meat (ch. Job. 6:7). The conduct of his friends one great part of his affliction. Man is to man the sorest, surest ill. Instead of sympathy to soothe his sufferings, Job had only scorn to aggravate them. Such painful experience, especially from friends, happily the lot of few sufferers. Yet that of the Man of sorrows standing in our room. Complained of by Him as one of his keenest trials (Psa. 22:7; Mat. 27:39). The Contradiction of sinners against himself mentioned as the burden of his sufferings (Heb. 12:4). His heart broken by reproach (Psa. 69:20). In proportion to the sweetness of true friendship and sympathy in sorrow, is the bitterness of the want, and especially the opposite, of it. Friendship the wine of life; unkind reproaches from professed friends, especially in trouble, distilled wormwood.

III. Earnestly beseeches God to grant a speedy trial of his case (Job. 17:3).

Lay down now (or, give a pledge, I pray thee; put me in a surety with thee (or, give, or, be surety to me [in this controversy of mine] with thee,that thou wilt afford me a trial and act as a party); who is he that will strike hands with me? (or, who else is there that will, &c.,that is able to enter into the controversy? or, who is there, when such a pledge is given me by Thee, that will enter into the controversy with me? I will challenge anyone to prove me a wicked dissembler). Always the great burden of Jobs desire to have his case fairly tried. The result and evidence of his conscious integrity. The most painful part of his suffering, that he was treated as a wicked man, and, in consequence of that treatment, was regarded as such by his friends. A good mans name more precious to him than life. The cutting taunt of Davids enemies, and those of Davids antitype in trouble, where is now thy God? (Psa. 42:10; Mat. 27:41-43). Christ esteemed by His enemies, stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted, as a man under Gods displeasure, and suffering for his sins (Isa. 53:4). For the consolation of anxious souls, God has given what Job desired, His promise and His oath (Heb. 6:17-18). These given, not that they shall have their case tried, but that, on accepting Christ as their substitute and righteousness, they shall be accepted as righteous with God, just as they are. God Himself a surety to such that no evil shall befal them (Psa. 119:122). Davids comfort that God had made with him an everlasting covenant (2Sa. 23:5). Christ provided by God as the surety of that covenant (Heb. 7:22). The Divine pledge that on receiving Him, no good thing shall be witheld from us (Rom. 8:32).The reason for Jobs request (Job. 17:4) For thou hast hid their heart from understanding (withheld from his friends the wisdom and intelligence necessary to qualify them for giving a right judgment in his case, or to make them successful parties in the controversy); therefore shalt thou not exalt them (as righteous judges, or as those who have had the better in the case). A two-fold ground of Jobs request for a fair trial of his case by God Himself

(1) The incapacity of his friends to judge in the matter;
(2) His consciousness of his innocence, and that in the controversy he will gain the cause. Job called to wage a double controversy
(1) As against God, in His appearing to afflict him as a wicked man;
(2) As against his friends, in their charging him with being such.

Observe

1. The highest understanding to judge correctly between right and wrong in principle and conduct, and rightly to interpret Gods dealings and dispensations with men. No understanding as to moral and spiritual subjects, but as the gift of God. With God either to give or withhold this understanding (Mat. 11:25). A measure of it given to all men (Joh. 1:9). That measure capable of being increased or diminished. The increase or diminution according to the improvement made of it, and the means employed for increasing it. To him that hath, &c. He that walketh with wise men shall be wise.The want of a clear and correct moral judgment the consequence of sin. A dim perception and unsound judgment in moral and spiritual things one of the natural, as well as judicial, effects of transgression. The most upright, not the most learned, the most capable of forming a correct judgment on great moral questions. The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him. A good understanding have all they that keep thy testimonies.

2. The true exaltation that which comes from God (Psa. 76:5-7; Dan. 4:37). The possession and exercise of a sound moral judgment the ground of exaltation with God as of commendation with men (Pro. 12:8). Prejudice and partiality in judging of an individuals state and character a serious ground of Divine displeasure. Harsh and uncharitable judgment of and conduct towards a faithful and suffering servant of His the object of His disapprobation. Hence

(1) The frequent denunciations in the Psalms in reference to Davids enemies and persecutors;

(2) The fearful judgments made to follow the Jewish nation for their treatment of Gods righteous servant, their own Messiah. Jobs friends not only not exalted by God, but deeply humbled and abased by Him in the end (ch. Job. 42:7-8). The enemies and persecutors of Christ and His cause ultimately clothed with shame (Psalms 132). A bad cause only for a time apparently triumphant. Magna est veritas, &c.

IV. A denunciation against treacherous and unfaithful friends (Job. 17:5).

He that speaketh flattery to his friends (or the man who betrays his friends to [become a] spoil or prey; who deserts and betrays his friends from selfish considerations) the eyes of his children shall fail; his sin is so grievous in the sight of God that it shall be visited not only on himself, but on his children. The treacherous and unfaithful conduct of Jobs friends already the subject of his sorrowful complaint (ch. Job. 6:15-27). Observe

(1) Treachery and unfaithfulness on the part of professed friends one of the most cutting trials with men, and the most condemning sins with God. These concentrated in the conduct of Judas Iscariot. The frequent complaint of David, and the painful experience of Davids antitype (Psa. 40:9; Psa. 55:12; Joh. 13:18).

(2) Some sins more heinous in themselves and more disastrous in their consequences than others.

(3) Sin in many cases entails its consequences on a mans children as well as on himself. Gehazis sin followed by the infliction of Naamans leprosy on himself and his posterity for ever. On the other hand, the virtuous conduct of parents entails a blessing on their offsprings. So the faith of Abraham, the zeal of Phinehas, the piety of Obed-Edom. In the text, Job retorts upon his friends their cruel allusion to his childrens calamity (ch. Job. 5:4; Job. 8:4; Job. 15:30). Not only speaks according to the Old Testament platform, but announces a general law in Gods moral government. The consequences of parents sins upon their children often natural and in the ordinary course of Divine Providence; at the same time judicial, whatever may be the instrumentality or natural causes.

V. Returns to his own distressed condition

His sufferings the cause of the suspicion resting upon his character. Mentions

1. The contempt to which his circumstances exposed him (Job. 17:6). He (i.e. Godfrequently spoken of without being named) hath made me also a by-word (or proverb) of the people; and aforetime I was as a tabret (or, and I am become an object to spit before, or, to spit at in the face). Distressing contrast. Formerly the object of universal reverence and respect; now of public contempt and insult (ch. Job. 30:10). To spit at or in the presence of another still a common mode of showing contempt among the Arabs. Mahommedans often thus exhibit their contempt of Christians. Trouble greatly aggravated by contrast with former prosperity. Contempt a bitter ingredient in a noble-minded mans cup of sorrow. A frequent subject of complaint in the Psalms (Psa. 22:6-7; Psa. 35:15-16; Psa. 49:7; Psa. 49:11-12; Psa. 49:19; Psa. 123:3-4). The experience of the Man of Sorrows (Mat. 27:28-29; Mat. 27:41-44; Isa. 53:3). Jesus, like Job, spit upon by the rabble (Isa. 50:6; Mat. 26:67; Mat. 27:30).

2. The effect of grief upon his physical frame (Job. 17:7). Mine eye also is dim by reason of sorrow, and all my members (or features) are as a shadow. The eye dimmed by weeping and nervous exhaustion. The emaciation consequent on protracted sorrow still more common. Grief preys on the whole frame. Digestive organs retarded in their operation; nutrition at a stand. Jobs case (ch. Job. 19:20). Davids complaint (Psa. 22:17). So the prophet representing the Jewish Church in its trouble (Psa. 102:5; 2Sa. 4:8). Jobs trouble now of some continuance. The change in his appearance already such as to render him scarcely recognizable by his friends (ch. Job. 2:12). The Man of Sorrows, when little above thirty, spoken of as not yet fifty years old (Joh. 8:57). Job already a by-word, or proverb, of suffering or sorrow. Probably regarded as an example of the justice of God overtaking a secret transgressor, and of the sudden overthrow of those who have made themselves rich. Similar experience of David as a type of the Messiah (Psa. 69:11). Job now for thousands of years a proverb of patience. His tears already gems. Our sorrow the inverted image of our nobleness; perhaps, also, the measure of our sympathy [Carlyle]. In Job three superlatives combinednobleness of mind and character; trouble, with grief as its natural effect; patience, at least for a time, in enduring it.

VI. The contemplated effect of his sufferings on others

This twofold

1. The encouragement of suffering innocence (Job. 17:8). Upright men shall be astonished at this [so aggravated is suffering in an innocent man, who yet maintains his integrity under it]; and the innocent [encouraged by my example] shall stir up himself against the hypocrite (or ungodly man). Probably contemplates the effect, not merely of his suffering, but of the future public vindication of his character, at times confidently anticipated (ch. Job. 19:25-29; Job. 23:10). Hence, another reason for wishing a speedy decision of his case. Jobs experience an encouragement to all suffering believers

(1) Not to be surprised if overtaken by signal affliction. Gods dealings with His people often dark and mysterious. Suffering saints Asaphs perplexity (Psa. 73:10-15).

(2) Not to wonder if subjected to misapprehension and suspicion even with good men. Jobs antitype also an object of astonishment on account of unparalleled sufferings borne with unparalleled patience (Isa. 52:11; Isa. 53:7) The support given to believers under suffering often an astonishment to themselves, as well as admiration to others. Astonishing trials bring astonishing consolations and deliverances. The anticipated result of Jobs sufferings realized as long as there shall be suffering believers in the world. The encouragement of such one great object of the book. Job read by the early Church every year in Passion-week. The subject of frequent meditation with the Man of SorrowsJobs great antitype. One means of building up his manhood and preparing him for patient suffering. Job the example of suffering patience especially for the Old Testament Church, as Jesus is for the New (Heb. 12:2-3. As the result of Jobs sufferings, the pious should stir up himself against the profane, however prosperous in this world; not against their persons, but their principles and practice. Saints to love the sinner but to hate and oppose his sin. Observe

(1) The duty of believers to stir themselves up (Isa. 64:7). Godliness requires energy and zeal for its maintenance and practice. This especially in times of persecution, of general backsliding and apostacy, or of prevailing lukewarmness and worldliness. No small matter to hold on against prosperous ungodliness.

(2) The effect of Gods providential dealings with His church and people often very different from what is and might be expected. God makes both the wrath of man and the sufferings of the saintseven their sinsto praise Him. The blood of the martyrs the seed of the Church. Hopefuls conversion due to Faithfuls martyrdom.

(3) A mark of sincerity to take part with suffering piety. The case of Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea. Believers at Rome waxed confident through Pauls bonds (Php. 1:14).

2. Encouragement to perseverance in Godliness (Job. 17:9). The righteous also shall hold (or take firm hold) on his way, and he that is of clean hands shall be stronger and stronger. The example of perseverance in one an important means of promoting it in others. Gods wisdom and kindness in providing such an example as Job at so early a period of the world. Men more influenced by example than abstract reasoning or simple precept. The value of biography. Hence the large proportion of the Bible occupied with the life and history of individuals. Patient suffering a powerful sermon.

Perseverance in Holiness

The great duty of believers. Not without strenuous effort. Much to discourage and oppose. The current of the world and the flesh to swim against. Principalities and powers to be resisted. Many adversaries. The epistle to the Hebrews written to strengthen believers to hold on their way. Perseverance the test of sincerity (1Jn. 2:19). The path of the just as the shining light, shining more and more unto the perfect day. Promised to believers (Php. 1:6). The source of it, the power of God; the means, faith (1Pe. 1:5). Gods printing done with fast colours. God able to keep His people, and as willing as He is able. Christ both the Author and Finisher of our faith. Believers not of them that draw back unto perdition (Heb. 10:39; Heb. 12:2).

The godly, from Jobs sufferings, not only to hold on their way, but to become stronger and stronger (Heb., add strength). Not only perseverance the duty and mark of believers, but

Growth

Growth in holiness Gods willGrow in grace. Provision made for itHe giveth more grace. The object of Christs advent that we might have life, and have it more abundantly. Believers to be addingadd to your faith virtue or courage, &c. From strength to strength. Must either advance or retrograde. The character of those who growHe that is of clean hands. Clean hands the index and result of a clean heart. Hands only clean when washed by faith in the blood of cleansing. Growth necessary. New strength for new and sorer trials, new and harder duties, new and severer battles. Means of growth

(1) Waiting on the Lord in prayer and otherwise (Isa. 40:30-31).

(2) Converse with the word of God, the food of the soul (1Pe. 2:2).

(3) Faith in Christ as our strength and life (Heb. 12:2).

(4) Fellowship with Gods faithful servants, and especially Christ himself (Pro. 13:20).

(5) Contemplation of Christs glory. His character, and His cross (2Co. 3:18).

(6) Exercise and improvement of the grace already givenTo him that hath, &c.
(7) Discipline of Divine providence. Strength of religious principle heightened by suffering and trial. Tried grace is growing grace. The more Israel were afflicted in Egypt, the more they grew.

VII. Jobs dismission of his friends (Job. 17:10).

But as for you all (contrasting them with the upright innocent persons just mentioned), do ye return and come now (return again, i.e., to the discussionspoken ironically; or, return and depart, i.e., to your own home). The reason of this dismission of them twofold:

1. The want of wisdom they had manifested. For I do not find one wise man among you. Want of capacity shown for the office they had undertaken. Had all proved themselves miserable comforters, physicians of no value. Had either applied bad remedies or misapplied good ones. Observe

(1) Men to hold an office no longer than they exhibit capacity for it. Preachers listened to only as long as they are able to produce words of truth and soberness.

(2) Great pretension to wisdom often only covers the want of it. Shallow streams make greatest sound.

(3) Wisdom required in ministering to minds diseased. He that winneth souls, and he that rightly comforts mourners, is wise. A wise man, one who can show out of a good conversation (or life) his works with meekness of wisdom (Jas. 3:13). Two kinds of wisdom: one, earthly, sensual, devilish; the other from above,pure, peaceable, gentle, full of mercy and good fruits. True wisdom is to know the truth and do it. To choose right ends, and seek them by right means. The wise man one who(i.) Has understanding of Gods character and ways, and is able to interpret them to others; (ii.) knows both time and judgment; has understanding of the times; and knows what both himself and others ought to do, and does it; (iii.) Faithfully and intelligently aims at the best interests of himself and his fellow men. True wisdom the gift of God, and to be asked in believing prayer (Jas. 1:5-6; Jas. 1:17; Jas. 3:17). Christ made wisdom to those who are in Him (1Co. 1:30).

2. The certainty and nearness of his own death which contradicted their promises of future prosperity (Job. 17:2). My days (perhaps his happy ones) are past, my purposes are broken off, even the thoughts (margin possessions) of my heart (the purposes and hopes which he had fondly cherished,probably, according to Jobs character, having reference more to the welfare of others than himself; these all dashed to the ground by his calamities and approaching death). Observe

(1) The part of a good man to form plans of usefulness for his fellow man;

(2) Necessary not to defer the execution of such plans. Sickness, trouble, and death may intervene to prevent their accomplishment. Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might. (Ecc. 9:10). Hence the folly and unreasonableness of the friends counsel and promises. Their attempt that of those who (Job. 17:12) change (or make) the night into day (talking of future prosperity in such dark and hopeless circumstances); the light is short because of darkness (or, they make the light near in the very presence of darkness,talk of light when there is only darkness and death; the same idea repeated according to Hebrew parallelism). Like that in the Proverbs, under another figure,As vinegar upon nitre, so is he that singeth songs to a heavy heart (Pro. 25:20). Words in order to be useful must be spoken in season.

Re-asserts the certainty and nearness of his end, to show the vanity of his friends counsel (Job. 17:13). If I wait (indulge, hope, or expection), the grave is mine house (the only home I can look for, instead of the pleasant and prosperous habitation you hold out to me); I have made my bed in darkness (have already taken possession of the tomb as my abode, by spreading my couch in its darkness). (Job. 17:14)I have said to corruption (or the pit, i.e., of the grave), Thou art my father (as being now bethrothed to death, and so made a member of his family), and to the worm (that preys upon the lifeless corpsean idea frequent in Arab poetry), Thou art my mother and sister (as already allied to these pulchral household). (Job. 17:15).And where is now (or where is then) my hope (the hope you counsel me to entertain); as for my hope, who shall see it? (such a hope would be soon quenched in death without any seeing its realization). (Job. 17:16)They (or it, viz., my hope) shall go down to the bars of the pit (to the gates or chambers of the grave), when our rest together is in the dust (or, it [or we] shall lie down together in the dust, my hopes should be buried with myself in the grave). Observe.

1. The grave viewed by a believer with calmness and with comfort. To such, a home or resting place, where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest. To a believer, death is of all pain the period, not of joy.

Death is the privilege of human nature,
And life without it were not worth the taking.

Relationship with the grave (i.) of an endearing kind. In a sense, our father, mother, and sister. Contains the dust of some of our dearest friends. A husband or a wife, a parent or a child; these give the grave a in regard to it. Contains the bodies of a home-like aspect, and inspire a home-feeling believers brethren and sisters, while heaven contains their spirits. (ii.) Of a humbling kind. Man himself a worm, sprung from the same ground. Worms the companions and sharers of his final resting place. Worms his future guests who shall feed upon himself.

2. Mans duty to guard against delusion in the matter of his hope. Good to ask with Job

What is my hope?

The hope of many, only such as to be buried with them in the same grave. Such the case if our hope is only of an earthly nature, or resting on a false foundation.

Who builds on less than an immortal base,
Fond as he seems, condemns his joys to death.

Our hope may be either a cable or a cobweb; may either rest on solid rock or yielding sand. The believers hope is(i.) a good hope, as having (a) a good objectthe heavenly inheritance; (b) a good foundation,Christ himself and his finished work. (ii.) A lively hope, as one that shall survive the grave. Having Christ as our hope, we plant our foot on the grave and sing our pan over it: O grave where is thy victory? O death where is thy sting?

Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell

4. Yet his condition is such that his hope will soon go with him to the grave. (Job. 17:1-16)

TEXT 17:116

My spirit is consumed, my days are extinct,
The grave is ready for me.

2 Surely there are mockers with me,

And mine eye dwelleth upon their provocation.

3 Give now a pledge, be surety for me with thy self;

Who is there that will strike hands with me?

4 For thou hast hid their heart from understanding:

Therefore shalt thou not exalt them.

5 He that denounceth his friends for a prey,

Even the eyes of his children shall fail.

6 But he hath made me a byword of the people;

And they spit in my face.

7 Mine eye also is dim my reason of sorrow,

And all my members are as a shadow.

8 Upright men shall be astonished at this,

And the innocent shall stir up himself against the godless.

9 Yet shall the righteous hold on his way.

And he that hath clean hands shall wax stronger and stronger.

10 But as for you all, come on now again;

And I shall not find a wise man among you.

11 My days are past, my purposes are broken off,

Even the thoughts of my heart.

12 They change the night into day:

The light, say they, is near unto the darkness.

13 If I look for Sheol as my house;

If I have spread my couch in the darkness;

14 If I have said to corruption, Thou art my father;

To the worm, Thou art my mother, and my sister;

15 Where then is my hope?

And as for my hope, who shall see it?

16 It shall go down to the bars of Sheol,

When once there is rest in the dust.

COMMENT 17:116

Job. 17:1Job sees his vindication in heaven, not on earth where his condition is hopeless. To him, death is inevitable, but his estrangement from God is not permanent. Speaking under intense emotional strain, he gasps that my spirit (ruach) is consumed, my days are extinct (zaakextinguished, snuffed out). The grave (instead of plural, we take this as singular with enclitic particle -m) is all ready for me.

Job. 17:2The verse begins with a formula introducing an oathI swear that (as in Job. 31:36)there are mockers around me. The noun is abstract, which yields the meaning of mockery (Brown, Driver, and Briggsgive truly mockery surrounded me). Eliphazs illusory promises of Jobs restoration Job adjudges to be mockeries.

Job. 17:3The LXX omits Job. 17:3 b to Job. 17:5a. The giving and taking of pledges was common practice, and the risk was greatGen. 38:17-20; Exo. 22:26; Deu. 24:6-17; Pro. 6:1; Pro. 11:15; Pro. 17:18; Pro. 22:26; and Eccl. 29:1420. The striking of the hand ratified the pledge. Job is asking God, not his friends, to ratify a pledgesee Heb. 6:13 ff.

Job. 17:4The verse answers the question found in the second line of Job. 17:3. The suffix their attached to the word translated heart means that Job is referring to the three friends. He appeals to God (the who of Job. 17:3) since his friends have deprived him of insight. In the great temple hymn book, Psa. 13:3-5; Psa. 30:2; Psa. 37:19; and Psa. 41:11, we read of the common prayer of the innocent sufferer that his foes not be allowed to triumph over him. The friends hands have not been raised to strike a pledge or guarantee, until Jobs innocence can be established. No one will risk providing Jobs bail until his trial is arranged. Job is left alone. God is responsible for Jobs condition and his friends lack of understanding.

Job. 17:5This is a very cryptic verse. The K. J. V. follows the old Jewish interpreters in taking heleq in sense of flattery or smooth. The translation of the A. V. He that denounceth connects the root of the Hebrew word to divide or share and assumes the same meaning as in Jer. 20:10. The imagery of this verse is rather simple, though the grammar is not. It means that Jobs friends are represented as turning against him for no higher motive than an informers share of his property. The second line asserts that their children will suffer for their lack of compassion. In Job. 17:4, Job declares that God would not permit his friends to triumph, and he asserts that their treacherous behavior will negatively affect their offspringJob. 6:27 and Job. 13:7-11.

Job. 17:6God is referred to in the third personHe has made me an object of scorn of the neighboring people (lit. peoplesammim). Culturally, the bitterest insult and expression of contempt is to spit in someones faceJob. 30:10; Isa. 1:6; Mat. 26:6; Mat. 27:30. (The K. J. V. follows Rashi, who mistakenly identifies Topheth with top.)[190]

[190] See remarks by E. J. Kissane, The Book of Job (Dublin: Browne and Nolan, 1939), p. 104.

Job. 17:7The verb employed here expresses eyesight dimming with ageGen. 27:1; Deu. 34:7. Here grief causes the dim eyesightPsa. 6:8. Jobs body has deteriorated to a skeleton.[191]

[191] See the suggested emendation of N. Sarna, Journal of Jewish Studies, 6, 1955, 108110.

Job. 17:8Righteous men are deeply perplexed when they see what is happening to me. The more they observe, the more indignant they become.[192] Righteous men are appalled, same verb found in Isa. 52:14 as astonished, while the innocent stirs himself up against (verb means arouse self to excitementpleasurable in Job. 31:29; here it is negative excitement) the prosperity of the godless, i.e., unrighteous.

[192] Job. 17:8-10 are removed by some editors, but see Dhorme, Job, p. 24851, for defense of their integrity; note Pope, Jobrejection and reasons for so doing, p. 130.

Job. 17:9Job taunts his friends. He contradicts EliphazJob. 15:4. Though he cannot intellectually resolve the moral anomaly of the universe, the righteous man will hold to that which is right. Neither mystery nor anomaly will cause him to abandon the path of righteousness.[193] Blommerde well sums up the verse because of the misery which has befallen the just Job, the righteous are astonished. This is against all rules; they have to cling to their force, to defend themselves against this trial of their faith.[194]

[193] Delitzsch, Job, Vol. I, 300, compares these words to a rocket which shoots above

[194] See the indispensable, though technical, work of A. C. M. Blommerde, Northwest Semitic Grammar and Job, Biblica & Orientalia, 22, 1969, on this verse; also on the parallelism between derek and omes; see M. Dahood, Psalms, Vol. I, Psa. 1:1; and Vol. II, Psa. 67:3.

Job. 17:10Job challenges his friends to renew their attack on him. Your unsympathetic words will only expose your unfeeling folly. Repetition of their old words will not convince Job of their validity. Their assaults on him fail once more.

Job. 17:11The verse reflects Jobs deep emotions. Convulsed with fear, Job acknowledges that death is near. His plans or purposes (Zec. 8:15; Pro. 2:11; Pro. 8:12) are thwarted. Plans shatterednow what? The literary form here is problematic, but could very well express Jobs heightening of his emotion-charged speech. Prodding ever deeper into his inner self, Job cries out that even his desires (Heb. root yaras or arastranslated as thoughts in A. V.) are destroyed.

Job. 17:12This verse does not appear in earliest LXX texts. Jobs mockers distress him so that his nights turn into days. Sleepless nights and distress-filled days add up to dark despair. (Popes comments on this verse that it is incompatible with context is indefensible; compare with Dhormes defense.) Is light near to brighten Jobs darkness before dawn?

Job. 17:13His morbid preoccupation with death returns in this verse and continues through Job. 17:16. He is resigned to death without any hope, even in the time of abandonment. Is Sheol the best Job can anticipate?[195]

[195] See N. J. Tromp, Primitive Conceptions of Death and the Nether World in the Old Testament (Rome: Biblica et Orientalia, 21, 1969); and my essay Death Be Not Proud in my Seer, Savior, and the Saved (College Press, 1972 ed.) for Old Testament data, pp. 366ff.

Job. 17:14Job speaks to corruption (Heb. rootact the tragic darkness of the book, lighting it up suddenly, although only for a short time. corruptly) as though it is his origin and destiny.[196] Job feels the closest kinship with corruptionEze. 19:4; Eze. 19:8; Job. 33:18; Job. 33:22; Job. 33:28; and Psa. 16:10.

[196] See E. F. Sutcliffe, The Old Testament and the Future Life (London, 1946), pp. 76ff.

Job. 17:15His prospects are poor; thus he predicts the ultimate end of his hopelessness. He has no hope of the future prosperity, which his friends have suggested.

Job. 17:16The only ones who will see his hope will go down to Sheol with him. Note that even here Job is not presenting extinction, only a less than noble destiny for the righteous. The bars probably stand for the gates of Sheol. Job is here asserting that his last hope for a happy and prosperous life will be carried to the grave. Only in Sheol does he have a future. Though the Hebrew noun rest is translated so in A. V., probably the meaning of the second line of this verse is best described by R. S. V.Shall we descend together into the dust.

Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

XVII.

(1) My breath is corrupt.As it is said to be in Elephantiasis. Some understand it, My spirit is consumed. (See margin.)

The graves.i.e., the grave is minemy portion. The plural is frequently used for the singular in Hebrew, as, e.g., in the case of the word blood, which is commonly plural, though with us it is never so used.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

1. Now follow short ejaculatory clauses in which “Job chants his own requiem,” (Delitzsch,) reminding the reader of the requiem chanted by Mozart shortly before his death.

My breath is corrupt Literally, My life ( rouahh) is destroyed. Some still read as in the text.

The graves The Arabians, according to Schultens, frequently use “graves” for the grave. Around the sides of the tomb of the ancient Hebrew there were cells for the reception of sarcophagi containing the bodies of the dead. To such cells Job may refer.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

First strophe God, the witness of the innocent blood which his own wrath hath shed, cannot but plead with God for justice, though man, the victim, be in the article of death. Job 16:18 – Job 17:2.

Job’s faith again appeals from God as he seems, to God as he must be.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Job’s Dialogue with Three Friends – Job 3:1 to Job 31:40, which makes up the major portion of this book, consists of a dialogue between Job and his three friends. In this dialogue, Job’s friends engage in three rounds of accusations against Job, with him offering three defenses of his righteousness. Thus, Job and his friends are able to confirm each of their views with three speeches, since the Scriptures tell us that a matter is confirmed in the mouth of two or three witnesses (2Co 13:1). The underlying theme of this lengthy dialogue is man’s attempt to explain how a person is justified before God. Job will express his intense grief (Job 3:1-26), in which his three friends will answer by finding fault with Job. He will eventually respond to this condemnation in a declaration of faith that God Himself will provide a redeemer, who shall stand on earth in the latter days (Job 19:25-27). This is generally understood as a reference to the coming of Jesus Christ to redeem mankind from their sins.

Job’s declaration of his redeemer in Job 19:23-29, which would be recorded for ever, certainly moved the heart of God. This is perhaps the most popular passage in the book of Job, and reflects the depth of Job’s suffering and plea to God for redemption. God certainly answered his prayer by recording Job’s story in the eternal Word of God and by allowing Job to meet His Redeemer in Heaven. I can imagine God being moved by this prayer of Job and moving upon earth to provide someone to record Job’s testimony, and moving in the life of a man, such as Abraham, to prepare for the Coming of Christ. Perhaps it is this prayer that moved God to call Abraham out of the East and into the Promised Land.

The order in which these three friends deliver their speeches probably reflects their age of seniority, or their position in society.

Scene 1 First Round of Speeches Job 3:1 to Job 14:22

Scene 2 Second Round of Speeches Job 15:1 to Job 21:34

Scene 3 Third Round of Speeches Job 22:1 to Job 31:40

Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

Comments – Job 16:1 to Job 17:16 is similar to Psalms 22 in that both passages of Scripture describe the pains of suffering.

Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

Job Complains of his Weakness

v. 1. My breath is corrupt, or, “my spirit is violently disturbed”; his power of life was fast waning as his bodily organism was succumbing to the illness racking him. My days are extinct, the graves are ready for me; his life was like a lamp whose oil was about consumed, and so he saw nothing but the tomb before him.

v. 2. Are there not mockers with me? or, “truly, mockery surrounds me,” namely, in the persons of these false friends. And doth not mine eye continue in their provocation? The eyes of Job were obliged to rest, to dwell, on their quarreling, on their contentions, a fact which increased his misery.

v. 3. Lay down now, Job pleads with God to furnish him a pledge, or security, to bind Himself as surety; put me in a surety with Thee, He Himself being bondsman for Job before the tribunal of divine justice. Who is he that will strike hands with me? or, “who else would guarantee or furnish me surety?” Both parties in a trial were obliged to pledge a sum or guarantee before court was opened, and it is with reference to this custom that Job asks God to go on his bond.

v. 4. For Thou hast hid their heart from understanding, his friends were so short-sighted and narrow-minded that they were prevented from seeing and acknowledging Job’s innocence; therefore shalt Thou not exalt them, not let them prevail against Job, whom they were unjustly accusing. And the attitude of his friends forces another exclamation from his lips.

v. 5. He that speaketh flattery to his friends, even the eyes of his children shall fail, literally, “he who offers his friends for a prey,” exposing them to unjust accusations, as did the three friends of Job, the eyes of his children will languish. The thought is that God certainly could not favor these false friends, since they had betrayed Job’s friendship and thus had incurred judgment in which their children were bound to share.

v. 6. He hath made me also a byword of the people, God had set him as a proverb before the whole world, the name of Job suggested to the minds of men everywhere a great misery inflicted by the Lord; and aforetime I was as a tabret, one into whose face the passers-by could freely spit, the object of the most unqualified contempt.

v. 7. Mine eye also is dim by reason of sorrow, the light of his eyes was expiring from weeping and grief, and all my members are as a shadow, wasted away like phantoms.

v. 8. Upright men shall be astonied at this, they are astonished and horrified that such a fate can strike the righteous, and the innocent shall stir up himself against the hypocrite, roused up in anger against the ungodly, his sense of justice being outraged by the prosperity of the wicked.

v. 9. The righteous also shall hold on his way, that is, in spite of such happenings the truly pious person will cling to his righteousness, and he that hath clean hands shall be stronger and stronger, increase in inward, spiritual strength. This is one of the passages which show the purpose of the book, lighting up its darkness like a flash of encouraging brightness.

v. 10. But as for you all, Job here addressing himself once more to his false friends, do ye return and come now, he challenged them to come forward with some real wisdom; for I cannot find one wise man among you, their hearts remained closed to the right understanding of Job’s condition, they were still deceiving themselves concerning the actual state of the case before them. Thus false friends everywhere, if once they have rendered judgment, are most unwilling to retract their false statements, preferring, rather, to have their victim suffer unjustly.

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

EXPOSITION

Job 17:1-16

The general character of this chapter has been considered in the introductory section to Job 16:1-22. It is occupied mainly with Job’s complaints of his treatment by his friends, and his lamentations over his sufferings (verses 1-12). At the end he appeals to the grave, as the only hope or comfort left to him (verses 13-16).

Job 17:1

My breath is corrupt; or, my spirit is oppressed. But the physical meaning is the more probable one. A fetid breath is one of the surest signs of approaching dissolution. My days are extinct; or, cut off. The verb used does not occur elsewhere. The graves are ready for me; or, the chambers of the grave are mine already. The plural form is best explained by regarding it as referring to the niches commonly cut in a sepulchral chamber to receive the bodies of the departed.

Job 17:2

Are there not mockers with me? literally, mockeriesthe abstract for the concrete. (For the sentiment, comp. Job 16:20 and Job 30:1-14.) And doth not mine eye continue in their provocation? i.e. “Have I anything else to look upon? Are not the mockers always about me, always provoking me?”

Job 17:3

Lay down now; or, give now a pledge (see the Revised Version). The terms used in this verse are law terms. Job calls upon God to go into court with him, and, first of all, to deposit the caution-money which the court will require before it undertakes the investigation of the case. Next, he goes on to say, put me in a surety with thee; or rather (as in the Revised Version), be surety for me with thyself‘ which is either the same thing with giving a pledge, or a further legal requirement. Finally, he asks the question, Who is he that will strike hands with me? meaning, “Who else is there but thyself, to whom I can look to be my surety, and by striking hands (comp. Pro 6:1) with me to accept the legal responsibility?” As Dr. Stanley Leathes says, “It is wonderful the way in which the language of Job fits in with what we have since and elsewhere learnt concerning the Persons in the Godhead.”

Job 17:4

For thou hast hid their heart from understanding. My so-called friends will certainly not undertake for me, since thou hast blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts against me. Therefore shalt thou not exalt them. God will not exalt those who are without understanding.

Job 17:5

He that speaketh flattery to his friends; rather, he that denounceth his friends for a prey. Job means to accuse his “comforters” of so acting. By their persistent belief in his grievous wickedness they give him up, as it were, for a prey to calamity, which they pronounce him to have deserved on account of his secret sins. Even the eyes of his children shall fail. Whoever so acts shall be punished, not only in his own person, but also in the persons of his descendants (comp. Exo 20:5).

Job 17:6

He hath made me also a byword of the people. God, by the unprecedented character of his afflictions, has made Job a byword among the surrounding nationsa byword, that is, for an afflicted person. Job, by the manner in which he bore his afflictions, made himself a byword for patience and endurance among God’s people throughout all ages (see Jas 5:11). And aforetime I was as a tabret; rather, I am become an abomination before them; or, as our Revisers translate, I am become an open abhorring (comp. Job 30:10).

Job 17:7

Mine eye also is dim by reason of sorrow (comp. Psa 6:7; Psa 31:9). Excessive weeping, such as stains the cheeks (Job 16:16), will also in most cases dim and dull the eyesight. And all my members are as a shadow. Weak, that is, worn out, unstable, fleeting, ready to pass away.

Job 17:8

Upright men shall be astonied at this. When Job’s case comes to beknown, “upright men” will be astonished at it. They will marvel how it came to pass that such a manso true, so faithful, so “perfect” (Job 1:1)could have been allowed by God to suffer so terribly. In a world where, up to Job’s time, prosperity had been taken as the measure of goodness, the marvel was naturally great. Even now many a Christian is surprised and disturbed in mind if he gives the case prolonged and serious attention, though he holds the clue to it in that most enlightening phrase, “perfect through sufferings” (Heb 2:10). And the innocent shall stir up himself against the hypocrite. On astonishment will follow indignation. When it becomes generally recognized that, in a vast number of eases, the righteous suffer, while the wicked enjoy great prosperity, good men’s feelings will be stirred up against these prosperous ones; they will wax indignant, and take part against them.

Job 17:9

The righteous also; rather, yet the righteous. A strong opposing clause. Notwithstanding all the afflictions that befall him, and all the further afflictions which he anticipates, yet the truly righteous man shall hold on his way; i.e. maintain his righteous course, neither deviating from it to the right hand nor to the left, but holding to the strict line of rectitude without. wavering. Job is not thinking particularly of himself, but bent on testifying that righteous men generally act as they do, not from any hope of reward, but from principle and the bent of their characters. And he that hath clean hands shall be stronger and stronger. Not only will the just man maintain his integrity, but, as time goes on, his goodness will be more and more firmly established (comp. Aristotle’s ‘Theory of Habits’).

Job 17:10

But as for you all, do ye return, and come now. A challenge to his detractors. Return, all of you, to your old work of detraction, if you so please. I care not. Your accusations no longer vex me. For I cannot find one wise man among you. If I could the case would be different. But, as you have all shown yourselves wholly devoid of wisdom (comp. Job 42:8), what you say has no real importance.

Job 17:11

My days are past. My days are slipping away from me. Life is well-nigh over. What, then, does it matter what you say? My purposes are broken off, even the thoughts of my heart; literally, the possessions of my heart‘ all the store that it has accumulatedmy desires, purposes, wishes. I no longer care to vindicate my innocence in the sight of men, or to clear my character from aspersions.

Job 17:12

They change the night into day. They, my detractors, who are also my so-called “comforters,” pretend to change my night into day; assure me that the cloud which rests on me is only for a time, and will ere long give place to the brightness of day, to a glorious burst of sunshine (see Job 5:18-26; Job 8:21, Job 8:22; Job 11:15-19). The light (they say) is short because of darkness; or, rather, is near because of the darkness. To extreme darkness shows that dawn must be near, that the day must soon break when my sorrow will be turned into joy. Job had not found himself comforted by these assurances, which lacked the ring of sincerity, and could not be accomplished except by miracle, which he did not feel that he had any right to expect.

Job 17:13

If I wait, the grave is mine house; rather, surely I look for the grave (Sheol) as my house; i.e. I expect no return of prosperity, no renewal of life in a sumptuous mansion, no recovery of the state and dignity from which I have fallenI look only for Sheol as my future abode and resting-place -there, in Sheol, I have made my bed in the darkness; i.e. I regard myself as already there, lying on my narrow bed in the darkness, at rest after my afflictions.

Job 17:14

I have said to corruption, Thou art my father; i.e. I do not murmur; I accept my lot; I am ready to lie down with corruption, and embrace it, and call it “my father,” and henceforth remain with it. The idea that the soul is still with the body in the grave, more or less closely attached to it, and sensible of its condition and changes, was widely prevalent in the ancient world. Where bodies were simply buried, the horrible imagination of a close association with corruption naturally and almost necessarily intruded itself, and led to such reflections as those of Job in this verse. It was partly to get rid of this terrible nightmare that the Egyptians were so careful to embalm the bodies of their dead, and that the Babylonians deposited them in baked clay coffins, which they filled with honey (Herod; 1.198); while others still more effectually prevented the process of corruption by cremation. The modern revival of cremation is remarkable as indicating a peculiar form of atavism or recurrence to ancient types. For many ages after the coming of Christ, men so separated between the soul and the body after death that the corruption of the grave had no horror for them. Now materialistic ideas have so far recurred, that many of those who believe the soul to live on after death are doubtful whether it may not still be attached to the body more or less, end, dreading contact with the corruption, of the latter, fall back upon the old remedy. To the worm, Thou art my mother, and my sister. An expansion of the idea contained in the previous clause.

Job 17:15

And where is now my hope? (comp. Job 14:13-15). At first sight it might seem that to cue in Sheol there could be no hope. But Job is too conscious of his own ignorance to dogmatize on such a subject. What does he know of Sheol? How can he be sure that it is “God’s last word to men”? There may be hope even to “the spirits which are in prison.” Job’s question is, therefore, not to be taken as one of absolute incredulity, but as one of perplexed doubt. Is there hope for me anywhere? If so, where? As for my hope, who shall see it? i.e. what eye can penetrate the darkness of the future, and solve the riddle for me?

Job 17:16

They shall go down to the bars of the pit, when our rest together is in the dust. There is great difficulty in determining the subject to the verb “go down,” which is the third person plural feminine, whereas the only plural substantive at all nearthe word translated “bars”is masculine. Some suppose Job’s hopes to be meant, “hope” in the preceding verse having the force of any number of “hopes” (so the R.V.) Others disregard the grammatical difficulty of the plural feminine verb, and, making “bars” the nominative, translate, “The bars of Sheol shall go down,” i.e. “be broken down, perish;” or interrogatively, “Shall the bars of Sheol go down?” This rendering is thought to be “in harmony with the whole undercurrent of thought in the chapter;” but it has not approved itself to many commentators. The present commentator must acknowledge that he is unable to attach any satisfactory meaning to the words of the Hebrew text.

HOMILETICS

Job 17:1-16

Job to God: 3. The requiem of a dying man.

I. ANTICIPATING HIS IMMEDIATE DISSOLUTION. With three pathetic sighs the patriarch bemoans his dying condition.

1. The total collapse of his vital powers. Indicated by the shortness and offensiveness of his breath, announcing the approach of suffocation and decay. “My breath is corrupt.” And to this at last must all come. The most vigorous physical health, as well as the feeblest, contains within it germs of putridity. Essentially, notwithstanding all its strength and beauty, the corporeal frame is “this corruptible.” Therefore, “Thus saith the Lord let not the mighty man glory in his might” (Jer 9:23).

2. The speedy termination of his life. The complete extinction of the already feebly burning taper of his terrestrial existence was at hand. “My days are extinct.” Life is fittingly compared to a candle (Job 21:17; Pro 24:20; cf. ‘Macbeth,’ act 5. sc. 5), in respect of its definite extent, the rapidity with which it burns, the facility with which it can be extinguished, and the certainty that it shall at lest burn out.

3. The actual opening of his grave. Contemplated as having already taken place. “The graves are ready for me.” Job’s wasted skeleton made it all too evident that he was prepared for them, and could with propriety exclaim, as afterwards the aged Gaunt

“Gaunt am I for the graye, gaunt as a grave,
Whose hollow womb inherits nought but bones.”

It is well betimes to contemplate the narrow house appointed for all the living; to “sit upon the ground,” and “talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;” to reflect that

“Nothing can we call our own, but death:
And that small model of the barren earth,
Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.”

(‘King Richard II.,’ act 2. so. 1; act 3. sc. 2.)

It is well to realize that the tomb is but a step from the youngest, the fairest, the wisest, the strongest of Adam’s children, and prepare ourselves for it, as already it is prepared for us.

II. BIDDING FAREWELL TO HIS FRIENDS.

1. Describing their character. He calls them mockers, who had trifled with his misery, laughed at his innocence, openly accused him of flagrant wickedness, consummate hypocrisy, and daring impiety (cf. Job 12:4). This vehement reassertion of Job’s estimate of their behaviour would fall with the greater force and impressiveness upon their ears, because of proceeding from the lips of a dying man (cf. ‘King Richard II.,’ act 2. sc. 1, and ‘King Henry VIII.,’ act 2. sc. 1, in which John o’ Gaunt and Buckingham call attention to the weightiness of dying men’s words). It would sound like the malediction of an expiring prophet.

2. Brooding over their calumnies. Their wicked insinuations had stung him to the quick, and were still rankling in his bosom. Not even death’s shadow or the grave’s gloom could hide them from his mental vision. As if with an evil fascination, his soul’s eye fastened on them, found a lodging with them, and could not shake them off. Easily had they been spoken, but not so easily could their remembrance be effaced. “Cutting words and cruel reproaches are not easily banished,” especially when spoken by those from whom sympathy and kindness were expected. Hence the care which should be exercised not to inflict with the tongue wounds that only death can heal.

3. Predicting their discomfiture. “Therefore thou shalt not exalt them” (verse 4). Job means that in the hotly waged controversy between himself and his friends they will not be allowed to triumph, but be utterly routed and put to shame. And of this he points out the premonitory symptom, in that moral and spiritual blindness with which God had suffered them to be overtaken”for thou hast hid their heart from understanding” (verse 4). Either they had wilfully called good evil, and put darkness for light, or they were wholly incapable of understanding true religion or appreciating spiritual integrity. Hence, in either case, it was impossible that they could be right. Apart altogether from their applicability to the friends, Job here lays hold of important truths; as e.g.

(1) that the highest function of the spiritual understanding is to “discern spirits” (1Co 12:10; 1Jn 4:1);

(2) that the capacity of distinguishing the true from the false in religion belongs to no man by nature, but must be imparted by God (Mat 11:25; 1Co 12:11; 1Jn 1:1-10 :20);

(3) that the absence of this power to recognize true moral worth and spiritual integrity not only disqualifies an individual from acting as a judge in the sphere of religion, but, ipso facto, proclaims him to be as yet outside of that sphere altogether; and

(4) that God will certainly in the long run award the triumph to his own people and his own cause.

4. Announcing their punishment.

(1) Its severity. Their wickedness should be avenged, not alone upon themselves, but upon their children, whose “eyes should fail,” or languish (verse 5). That children suffer for the sins of parents is a fact of everyday experience; e.g. the families of drunkards, profligates, murderers, traitors, etc. It is a special sign of excessive wicked ness when its results affect the innocent descendants of its perpetrators. Hence God is said to visit the iniquities of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generations of them that hate him (Exo 20:5). The sin of Achan was visited on himself and his sons and daughters (Jos 7:24, Jos 7:25). The wickedness of Ahab was avenged on himself and his posterity (1Ki 21:20). The leprosy of Naaman clung to Gehszi and his descendants (2Ki 5:27). Over against this, however, stands the blessed fact that, though grace does not run in the blood, the piety of parents has a tendency to reproduce itself in the characters, as certainly it draws down blessings on the heads, of children. And as no greater felicity can be bestowed upon a parent than to contemplate the happiness of his household, so no greater sorrow can be his than to witness its destruction or dishonour. And such was the portion Job foretold for his mocking friends.

(2) Its naturalness. It would be a punishment in all respects befitting their offence. They had trampled on their best affections, delivering up him, their friend, to be a spoil (verse 5); and so would they in turn be wounded in their parental loves. God’s retributions often show a striking correspondence to the crimes they avenge. Though the lex talionis has been abrogated by the gospel, it is still not unfrequently observed that they who take the sword perish by the sword (Mat 26:52), and that” with what measure a man metes it is measured to him again” (Mat 7:2).

5. Proclaiming their folly. With contemptuous disdain he invites them to renew their efforts to establish his guilt, to attack him with another round of arguments, telling them he has no fear of their success, knowing them, as he does, to be essential fools (verse 5). If the language evinces

(1) amazing self-confidence, Job standing with his foot in the grave, and yet lifting up his head with unfaltering assurance to the skies; and

(2) keen intellectual penetration, the speaker clearly discerning the fallacious character of the friends’ consolation that, if he repented, he would yet be restored to a life of prosperity; it also displays

(3) extraordinary acerbity of feeling for a good man who might have been expected to hush his angry passions before lying down to sleep in the grave; and

(4) excessive heat of language which ill became a saint, even of the days of Job.

III. SEEKING REFUGE IN THE MERCY OF GOD.

1. The bold request. Turning from his friends and confronting death, Job entreats with a sublimely daring faith, which rises clear above the mists of despondency and the hurricanes of passion that alternately fill his breast, that God himself would strike hands with him, and engage to be Surety for his innocence against himself (verse 3). It is a by no means dim anticipation of the fundamental notion of the gospel, that, for the answering of all that God, as a righteous Lawgiver, can lay to the charge of man, God has himself become the Sponsor or Bondsman. What Job’s faith, standing as it were on the headlands of human thought, and looking out with prophetic eye into the vast terrain incognitam that spread out before him, craved for himself, that God would undertake the task of replying for him, not alone to the aspersions of his human calumniators, but also to the accusations and charges preferred against him by his Divine assailant, viz. God himselfthis astounding entreaty on the part of poor, feeble, sinful humanity, as represented by Job, has been answered by the gospel of Jesus Christ, who came in the fulness of the times as God incarnate to champion the cause of lost man, and vindicate, not his innocence, but his righteousness before God.

2. The fourfold reason. Job bases his supplication on a variety of grounds.

(1) The impossibility of finding help in any other quarter but with God. Who else [but God] should furnish surety to me?” (verse 3). Not man, since Job’s friends rather exulted in his conviction and condemnation as a criminal. Hence, if any one could act the part of bondsman, it must be God himself. So is it God alone who can either clear up the saint’s integrity or establish the sinner’s righteousness before God. “No hope can on the Law be built of justifying grace;” nay

“Vain is all human help for me:

I dare not trust an earthly prop!

My sole reliance is on thee;

Thou art my Hope.”
(Elliot.)

(2) The fact that God himself was the Author of his troubles. Humiliating as these were (verse 6), they had not come upon him accidentally, but by Divine permission. In so far, therefore, as they proclaimed him an object of God’s judicial wrath, they likewise made it clear that only God could effectually interpose for his deliverance. As Job was made a proverb and an object of contempt to his age (Job 30:9, Job 30:10), so was David (Psa 35:15, Psa 35:16), and the Messianic Sufferer spoken of in the Psalter (Psa 22:6, Psa 22:7; Psa 69:7, Psa 69:11, Psa 69:12, Psa 69:19), and the prophets (Isa 50:6; Isa 53:3), and Christ (Mat 26:67; Mat 27:28, Mat 27:29, Mat 27:41-44), and so may Christians expect to be (1Co 4:9, 1Co 4:11, 1Co 4:13).

(3) The circumstance that under the pressure of deep debasement he had wasted to a skeleton. Nothing impairs the strength or exhausts the vitality of the body like mental sorrow. Such inward anguish as Job had been subjected to makes the eye dim, the hair gray, the face old, and the entire frame feeble. Man’s frailty, and even man’s guiltiness, are recognized in Scripture as an argument for God’s merciful interposition (Psa 6:2, Psa 6:5, Psa 6:7; Psa 25:11).

(4) The danger of all moral distinctions becoming confused if his integrity were not cleared up. If allowed to pass away under a cloud, the truly pious would be astonished at so mysterious a dispensation, as afterwards they were at Christ (Isa 52:14), and might even be led, like David (Psa 37:7), Asaph (Psa 73:3), and Jeremiah (xii. 1), to envy the lot of the ungodly, who, notwithstanding their impiety, are allowed to prosper. This danger is hardly possible under the gospel, which has made it patent, first in Christ, and then in his people, that a righteous servant el God may be a sufferer. Still the suretyship of God in Christ for man has established moral distinctions on a firmer basis than they ever were before (Rom 3:31).

IV. EXULTING IN FINAL VICTORY. Job’s life is seemingly about to expire in gloom. Job himself, nevertheless, avows his confident expectation that the righteous and pure-handed man, like himself, shall be ultimately vindicated (verse 9). The words suggest:

1. The purity of the righteous. They are a people who have “clean hands.” Not that they are righteous or justified because of their clean hands. Even Job (Job 9:2), as well as David (Psa 143:2) and St. Paul (Gal 2:16), proclaimed that a man could not be justified by works before God. But clean hands are evidence of a pure heart. And holiness is a sure mark of faith. Nay, if purity of life be absent, the spirit of piety is not present. Faith without works is dead. Hence we are justified (as to the sincerity of our faith) by works; hence also “without holiness no man shall see the Lord.”

2. The progress of the righteous. They shall “wax stronger and stronger;” “They shall go from strength to strength.” They shall progress:

(1) Certainly. Wherever life is there must be growth. The soul possessed of grace cannot remain stagnant. A Christian not advancing towards the stature of a perfect man is unhealthy and unnatural.

(2) Gradually. The full measure of their advancement will not be attained at once. From stage to stage go the heavenward pilgrims. First the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear, is the law according to which the seed of the Word, no less than the seed of the field, ripens. First the new-born babe, then the youth, and after that the mature man, is the order of development for life spiritual as well as life physical.

(3) Proportionately. They shall grow in such a way as to wax stronger and stronger. That is, they shall advance in all the parts and properties of the Christian life in brightness and tenacity of faith, in depth and sincerity of penitence, in ripeness and beauty of outward holiness, in warmth and fulness of love, in cheerfulness and joyousness of hope.

3. The perseverance of the righteous. They shall hold on their way

(1) in spite of every sort of difficultythe accusations of conscience, the power of indwelling corruption, the feebleness of faith, the pressure of affliction, the opposition of the world, the misrepresentations of friends, the wiles of the devil;

(2) with willing determination, whatever else may be helpful to their progress, the co-operation of their own personal faith, intelligence, purpose, will, being absolutely indispensable, and these never failing entirely in the case of those who are truly upright in their hearts;

(3) by the help of Divine grace, since, after all, “it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps,” neither is it by man’s unaided strength alone, but rather by the power of God, that he is kept unto salvation; and

(4) to the journey’s end, for it is written of God’s pilgrims that they shall all come to Zion, and of Christ’s sheep that they shall never perish.

V. PLUNGING AGAIN INTO DARKNESS. Descending from the lofty altitude upon which his faith had for a moment stood, the patriarch a second time takes his stand beside the opened tomb, and finishes his requiem where he began it, by contemplating:

1. The approach of death, as:

(1) The ending of his days,”My days are past” (verse 11); which it is to every onethe finishing of life’s years and moments, the termination of days pleasant and prosperous as well as of days miserable and adverse, of days of toil and days of rest, days of suffering and days of rejoicing, days of sinning and days of praying, alas! also days of grace and days of discipline.

(2) The interrupting of his thoughts,”My purposes are broken off, even the thoughts,” or cherished possessions, “of my heart” (verse 11); which again is true of all, of good and bad, of wise and foolish, of rich and poor alike, death’s hand remorselessly arresting the subtle thoughts of the busy brain, be it of philosopher or poet, statesman or merchant, and marring with equal unconcern the projects of the pious and the plots of the ungodly, the schemes of the tradesman and the intrigues of the diplomatist, the ambitious enterprises of the rich and the modest plans of the poor.

(3) The disappointing of his hopes of life, the utter extinction of that expectation which his friends had so often urged him to cherish, viz. the hope of a return to prosperity on this side the grave, but which he had never seriously entertained, and which, if he had entertained it, was now completely shattered, the bare idea of looking for a restoration when one was manifestly stepping into darkness being as foolish as to look for daylight when the night was near. And so death deals with all men’s hopeshopes of life, of prosperity, of happiness, of usefulness on earth,intercepts them, cuts them off, engulfs them in darkness as the night does the day.

2. The descent into Sheol, which he regards as:

(1) The resting-place of his body. “If I hope, it is for Sheol as my house. In darkness I make my bed” (verse 13). The grave is frequently spoken of as a house (Job 38:17), the house appointed for all living (Job 30:23), the long home of the departed (Ecc 12:5); and the only expectation of a worldly sort entertained by Job was that of entering this sepulchral habitation, in which already he had as it were spread his couch.

(2) The habitation of his relatives, these relatives being corruption whom he esteemed as his father, and the worm whom he named his sister or his mother. “What an impressive description, and yet how true it is of all] The most vigorous frame, the most beautiful and graceful form, the meat brilliant complexion, has a near relationship to the worm, and will soon belong to the mouldering family beneath the ground” (Barnes).

(3) The shelter of his true hope, the hope of a vindication, which, descending with him to the bars of the unseen world, might be lost to the eye of man, and in large measure to himself, but would rest beside him in the dust till the moment arrived for its public manifestation.

Learn:

1. That death is never more than a step from any man.

2. That those who are daily travelling towards the grave should begin betimes to prepare for their future homes.

3. That the whips and scorns of time, the mockings and calumniations of friends or foes, can pursue a man no further than to the bounds of life.

4. That God’s people have already been delivered from their greatest adversary by the willing suretyship of Christ.

5. That the royal road to heavenly exaltation is the inward illumination of the mind.

6. That good men should never rejoice in, though they may sometimes foresee, and even foretell, the punishment of their enemies.

7. That the best safeguard of a saintly man in trouble is to trace every affliction to the hand of God.

8. That Christ’s followers should not now be astonished at the tribulation of themselves or others.

9. That the just man who perseveres in holiness will attain to everlasting life.

10. That if death terminates the life of man on earth, it begins the existence of a saint in heaven.

11. That man possesses nobler relatives than the worms and corruption.

12. That death may finish all terrestrial hopes, but it cannot injure the hope of everlasting life, laid up for us in heaven.

HOMILIES BY E. JOHNSON

Job 17:1-16

The just holds on his way.

“The pencil of the Holy Ghost hath laboured more in describing the afflictions of Job than the felicities of Solomon,” says Lord Bacon. “Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes, and adversity is not without comfort and hopes. We see in needleworks and embroideries it is more pleasing to have a lively work upon a sad and solemn ground than to have a dark and melancholy work upon a lightsome ground; judge, therefore, of the pleasure of the heart by the pleasure of the eye.” On this dark monotonous background of trouble, the bright colours of a spiritual faith and hope stand from time to time most brilliantly forth. Another example of this occurs in the present chapter.

I. The first feeling presented is that of RELUCTANCE TO DIE UNDER MISCONSTRUCTION. (Verses 1, 2.) But for this, he is resigned to his fate. He must in the course of a short time renounce life, for disease is fulfilling its course; and he would do so willingly, if only the mockery of his friends did not continually vex him, and his eye were not provoked by their incessant irritation. There is generally something, even in a state of extreme suffering, which makes it hard to die. But to die misunderstood; under the cloud of a false accusation; like one who, mistakenly condemned, has languished in the cell of a prison, and gone to a felon’s grave;this must surely be the sharpest sting of death.

II. The agony of this thought impels him to RENEWED RECOURSE TO GOD. (Verse 8.) As none among men will give the promise and take upon him to vindicate Job’s innocence after death, will God be bound as Surety for him, and undertake this duty? Thus once more we see how the extremity of suffering forces Job upon his deepest faith, can never force him from it. And he is bound to exchange his darker thoughts of God for these truer ones, apparently unconscious that they are inconsistent with one another.

III. But there comes another RELAPSE INTO DESPONDENCY. (Verses 4-7.) He looks without, at the irritating spectacle of those complacent, unfriendly friends, and complains of their want of understanding, defying their authority. He accuses them of betraying him (verse 5 should probably be, “he that maketh a spoil of his friends,” etc.), and threatens them with sorrow in consequence. Then again he turns to God as the source of all his sufferings, who has made his name, once so fair in reputation, now a byword and a scoff, and has brought him into his present utter languor and exhaustion (verse 7).

IV. But once again there is a REVIVAL OF HIGH COURAGE AND HOPE. (Verses 8, 9.) He contemplates himself in this light as a reproach to all who behold him or know of his fate. The upright are thrown into amazed confusion, they are shocked at the spectacle; and the. innocent are stirred up against the profligate in indignation at their prosperity. But the just man will hold on his way, until the light again shines upon it; and he who has clean hands will, despite his present weakness, increase in strength. His words are “like a rocket which shoots above the tragic darkness of the book, lighting it up suddenly, though only for a short time ‘ (comp. Psa 73:1-28.).

V. He then turns again upon his friends with a SHARP REPROOF OF THEIR FOOLISH UNCONSOLATORY WORDS. (Verses 10-16.) The sharp rebuke of verse 10 is followed by reasons. His strength is consumed, and his end is drawing near; his days are past, his plans cut off, and the fondest desires of his heart; and the light which they think to bring in consolation, is like to darkness (verses 11, 12). He goes on to justify himself for seeing nothing but darkness and night before him, and to reject the hope which they hold out of better days. His hope is fixed on Hades, on the dark, lower world alone (verse 13). He has said to corruption, “Father!” the worm he has designated “mother and sister”! And where, then, is this hope of restored health and prosperity of which you vainly talk? It disappears through the gates of Hades, and yonder in the dust will be alone his rest (verses 14-16). But how unlike are God’s thoughts and ways to those of man! Job thinks his fate is scaled; he will neither live nor recover his former joy. Yet God has strangely and gloriously ordained that both life and joy restored shall be his, as the happy issue of his sufferings shows. Thus does he lead to the gates of hell and bring up again (1Sa 2:6), leads through suffering to conquest over the fear of death, and to the germination and unfolding of a hope that is centred in the unseen.J.

HOMILIES BY R. GREEN

Job 17:9

Progress in virtue.

A later book declares “the path of the just is as the shining light, which shineth more and more unto the perfect day.” So here the stability and progressive character of the righteous is assured.

I. PROGRESS IN VIRTUE IMPLIES A CAREFUL CHOOSING OF A GOOD WAY. It is characteristic of a righteous man that he has committed himself to a carefully chosen way. It is “his way.” It describes a path and manner of life. It embraces his entire “conversation.” He is not driven as with a wind and tossed from one course to another. One only path is before him, narrow it may be, and often hidden as a rugged mountain-path, demanding toil and watchfulness and effort to find it and to keep it. But this “his way” is chosen, and to it he has committed himself: He follows the path whithersoever it may lead him.

II. Progress in virtue on the part of a righteous man implies that HE PERSEVERES IN HIS CHOSEN AND WELL–SELECTED PATH. Fickleness and vacillation are not qualities of true righteousness; but patience in well-doing always marks the truly righteous one. The high character of virtue, the gravity of the interests involved in the practice of virtue, the strong motives of virtuous principle, together with the apprehension of the rewards of righteous doing, are all motives to perseverance’ whilst to them is added the ministry of Divine grace. God helps the good and obedient and striving soul. Thus the inward principle of virtue, and the support which it gathers to itself, alike help to secure a steady progress. But steady progress in the path of virtuous living must issue in growth and perfectness of virtuous character.

III. Steady progress in virtue is MARKED BY INCREASING STRENGTH OF CHARACTER AND CONVICTION. The righteous man waxes “stronger and stronger.” Holy principles gain a firmer hold upon his convictions. His life settles into a definiteness and stability of habit. He has greater power to resist evil; he has greater power over his own heart; he exerts a greater power over others around him. He is not moved from his integrity either by the fierce onslaughts of temptation or by the severities of trial. His life is pledged to a course of obedient livingto purity, truth, goodness. More and more he is established in his goings. He rises to greater brightness as the sun to greater strength. He gathers strength even from his afflictions. Deeper and deeper principles of holy living strike their firm roots into his whole spirit. He pursues his chosen and holy way undeterred by the many forms of temptation that assail him. In his righteousness he can “hold on his way,” and with his “clean hands” he waxes “stronger and stronger” day by day.R.G.

Job 17:11

The premature arrest of the purposes of life.

Job looks out from the sadness of his present condition, and turns in thought to his past days, to the purposes of those daysthe hopes he had cherished, the plans he had laid, even the thoughts of his heart. Alas l they are dashedbroken off. His purposes not accomplished, his plans useless, his hopes frustrated, his thoughts disappointed, his very days are past! How sad! how painful! We may reflect

I. ON THE LIABILITY, TO WHICH EVERY ONE IS SUBJECT, OF HAVING THE PURPOSES OF HIS LIFE BROKEN OFF. No one can certainly calculate on the prolongation of his life. The plans wisely laid even for good and holy purposes may be frustrated. The thoughtfully devised scheme for usefulness, even for the highest service to men, as well as the prudent endeavour to promote the felicity of home, or to advance personal culture, may all be torn asunder or broken, snapped off without coming to maturity. None can calculate on the future.

II. ON THE WISDOM OF SO FRAMING OUR ESTIMATE OF LIFE THAT WE ALWAYS TAKE INTO ACCOUNT THE UNCERTAINTY OF ITS TENURE. No man has a just view of his life who does not consider how soon life’s plans may be overset, torn to shreds. Life is not assured to us. We have no pledge that we shall have time to finish the work we have begun. Hence it is wise to frame our estimate of life in view of the possibility that all our hopes may be disappointed, our purposes broken off, and the thoughts of our hearts never fulfilled.

III. THE POSSIBLE ARREST OF LIFE‘S PURPOSES PREMATURELY MAKES IT NEEDFUL THAT EVERY ONE SHOULD SEEK DILIGENTLY TO DO HIS WORK WHILE OPPORTUNITY IS AFFORDED. Some work is given to every man to do, and time is given in which to do it. For no man is expected to do that for which he has not time. But no time may be wasted. The great lesson is again and again read in our hearing, “Work while it is called to-day, for the night cometh when no man can work.” The uncertainty of our life’s duration makes diligence imperative; it checks too confident an assurance of the future, and it makes it all-important that the life be grasped whose duration is assured. Happy he who can form good purposes and find time to fulfil them!R.G.

Job 17:13-16

The darkened hope.

Sad indeed is the hope which is attained only in the grave, which has no clear vision beyond. Unillumined, uncheered, it has no brightness, no comfort. All that Job seems at present to hope for is the silence, the darkness, the rest, of the grave. There certainly does not dawn upon him file clear light of the future; at least the assurance of it is not declared in his words. It is the grave, the grave, and the grave only. Contemplate the condition of such as have this hope only.

I. NO LIGHT IS CAST UPON LIFE‘S DARKNESS. Job’s condition one of extreme sadness. He bears up with much bravery; but when his spirit is sorely pressed he buries his thoughts in the tomb. “I have made my bed in the darkness.” No light comes from these dark shades to make brighter life’s gloom. “The grave,” “darkness,” “corruption,” “the worm,” “the bars of the pit,” “the dust”to these Job is reduced; he cannot rise above them. No ray of light can come thence to make his present path brighter.

II. THIS HOPE GIVES NO EASE IN LIFE‘S SORROWS. It awakens no holy emotion. It is a gloomy despair. Life ends in a tomb. The purposes of life are broken off with the ending of the day. Pain may cease then; but no ease comes thence to the afflicted one. To cry “father,” “mother,” “sister,” to the worm and to corruption has no element of cheerfulness in it, no inspiration of brightening hope to relieve the gloomy sorrowfulness of the present. Such a future could not be anticipated but with the uttermost dread and abhorrence save by one pressed out of mind by the severity of his present afflictions.

III. SUCH A HOPE IS INSUFFICIENT, INCOMPLETE, UNSATISFYING. It leaves the soul with an unfilled void. In its incompleteness and unsatisfying character it points to the necessity for a better and Brighter hope. Human life lacks a harvest in the absence of something brighter than this. For the best life to go down into the grave as its final condition seems so anomalous that everywhere the longing for a brighter condition exists.

IV. SUCH A HOPE STANDS IN CONTRAST TO THE CLEAR, COMFORTING, ASSURED HOPE OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH. Life and immortality had not been brought fully to light when these gloomy words were written. It remained for the perfect revelation and the all-perfect Revealer to make known the brightness of that future which awaits the godly. Israel held possession of the hope of the resurrection; but it is part of the skilfulness of the teaching in this book that anything short of a fully assured immortality of Blessedness is insufficient to meet the utmost requirements of the human soul.R.G.

HOMILIES BY W.F. ADENEY

Job 17:3

A pledge from God.

Job is assured by faith that God will ultimately vindicate his innocence; but meanwhile his horrible disease is eating into his very life, so that he fears he may not live to see the end when all shall be made clear. Therefore he prays for a pledge of the future liberation from calumny and vindication of his character. In other experiences we crave a pledge of the fulfilment of our most choice hopes. Let us consider what pledges God offers to us, and their significance.

I. OBSERVE THE MANY KINDS OF PLEDGE WHICH GOD GIVES TO US.

1. In nature. Nature is full of promise. She is eloquent with prophecy. Her parabolic significance points to the spiritual and the eternal. The messages of God’s goodness in spring flowers and autumn fruits are real pledges from the hand of God, earnests of his greater goodness.

2. In instinct. God has implanted in our breasts ineradicable desiresthirst for truth, hunger for love, yearning for holiness. The very existence of these instincts are pledges of the satisfaction of them, for God would not mock his children and torment them with delusive hopes. We may all have some delusive hopes, indeed; but not by nature as original instincts.

3. In revelation. God reveals himself in nature and in instinct, but more explicitly in the utterances of inspired human teachers. The Bible is a Divine pledge. Its self-evidencing inspiration confirms his truthfulness. God will not, cannot lie. Therefore the promises of Scripture, and even its precepts, carry with them pledges of the future when what is then portrayed will be seen in experience.

4. In Christ. He is the great Pledge from God. By giving us his Son God has confirmed his Word. He has not only fulfilled Messianic prophecy; he has given-a token of his changeless purpose of love, and an earnest of his future redemption of the race. Christ is the one greatest Pledge from God.

II. CONSIDER THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE DIVINE PLEDGE.

1. To reveal truth

(1) A pledge of pardon. Christ is to us a sign that God is willing to forgive sin and to welcome his penitent children. We are not left to vague surmises; we have a definite assurance in the mission and work of Christ.

(2) A pledge of love. The root from which the pardon comes is love. Christ is the Proof that God loves us.

(3) A pledge of character. The new Christian life is first seen in the Person of Christ. He lived it, and his experience is the pledge of what it will be when it is perfectly followed by his disciples.

(4) A pledge of hope. Nature, instinct, and revelation point vaguely to the immortality of which Christ is the sure Pledge. He is the Firstfruits of the resurrection, the Pledge of eternal life to. his people.

2. To confirm faith. Job longed for a pledge from God. We have received pledges, and one of them of highest worth. The supply of what Job desired should have a great effect upon us. We are unreasonable if we disregard the pledge of God, and turn aside from it to plunge into despairing scepticism. Like Moses, we can see the promised land. We have a better assurance than Gideon’s fleece, in Christ and his resurrection Therefore our attitude should be one of calm, unflinching faith. It must be only o! faith, however; for we have not the inheritance as yet, but only a pledge of it. Still God’s pledge is an absolutely safe security.W.F.A.

Job 17:4

The heart that is hidden from understanding.

Job is persuaded that God will not desert him. He even takes the very delusions of his tormentors as the pledge from God for which he has been praying; for these delusions seem to come from God, and to show that he has hidden the heart of the three friends from understanding. If it be so, they will not be exalted by God to trample on the sufferer in his misery.

I. UNDERSTANDING DEPENDS ON THE CONDITION OF THE HEART If the heart is wrong the judgment will be at fault. We do not judge simply as we see with our eyes. The mental and spiritual condition within largely determines the shape and character of our convictions. Observe some of the states of the heart that hide it from understanding.

1. Obtuseness. The heart may be simply dull and blind to truth. if the light shines with meridian splendour, the man who has cataracts in his eyes will stumble into the ditch as surely as if he were walking in midnight darkness. Some men have no eyes of sympathy with which to see their neighbours; they cannot understand them. Some have no spiritual perceptions of God; and they cannot understand him.

2. Prejudice. We see with the mind as well as with the eyes. Our perception is an amalgam of sight and thought. If the thought is warped, the perception will be crooked. A prejudiced heart excludes truth from the understanding.

3. Passion. Strong feeling blinds the judgment by its own fiery fury. The enraged heart, the sin-loving heart, the ill-regulated heart, are all void of understanding. We need a new and clean heart that we may receive God’s truth.

II. THE HEART FROM WHICH UNDERSTANDING IS HIDDEN CANNOT ENJOY THE FAVOUR OF GOD. His favour does not depend on intellectual conditions. Purely mental perplexity is no barrier against the soul in its enjoyment of the Divine love, for God does not wait for perfect orthodoxy before he will help and bless his children. But we have now to do with quite another kind of error. The error which cuts off from God’s favour is moral; it springs from a perversion of heart. For this we are to blame, and therefore the loss it entails is justly deserved. The loss of God’s favour is seen throughout, both in the origin and in the results of the error.

1. In its origin. The startling thought of Job is that it is God who has hidden the heart from understanding. The blindness is judicial, a result of God’s action. This nay look like attributing moral evil to God. If Job in his terrible darkness meant anything of the kind, of course we know that he must have been in error.

(1) But without going so far as this, we may see that God would withdraw his aiding Spirit from the perverse heart. The result would be to hide that heart from understanding,.

(2) The laws of human life and thought which connect perversity of heart with lack of understanding proceed from God.

(3) It is not well that truth should be understood by the perverse heart. Christ bade his disciples not cast their pearls before swine. The ideas for which we are not morally fit would be misapplied and degraded if we could receive them.

2. In its results. All error is dangerous, and moral error is fatal. God pities the bewildered doubter; he is angry with the perverse and wilful thinker, who goes wrong in thought because his heart is wrong. Such a man cannot prosper under the favour of God.W.F.A.

Job 17:7

The eye that is made dim by sorrow.

Job has just been saying that God bad hidden the heart of his tormentors from understanding (verse 4). Now he sadly observes that sorrow has dimmed his own eye. It is not easy to see clearly through a veil of tears. Excessive weeping induces blindness. The sad soul sits in darkness.

I. SORROW PREVENTS US FROM SEEING ALL THE TRUTH. It limits the range of vision even when it does not drive us down to the darkness of despair.

1. It is an emotion, and as such it absorbs our consciousness with internal feeling, and therefore does not permit it to look out in external observation. All subjectivity is unobservant.

2. It is a depressing influence. It tends to lower our vitality. It will scarcely let us lift up our eyes to see even when we have the power of vision. Poor Hagar was too broken-hearted to notice the well which was to restore life to her child. Thus in great grief the soul cannot see the Divine purpose, nor the love that is above all. Black clouds hide the heavens. A rain of tears blots out the earthly landscape. To the sorrowful eye there are no flowers in spring.

II. SORROW SHOULD LEAD US TO EXERCISE FAITH. What if the eye be dim? We are not dependent on sight. Our part is to walk by faith. Too clear a landscape excludes the sense of mystery, and absorbs our attention in connection with things earthly and visible. It is well to feel our littleness, our darkness, our limitation. Then our sorrow really enlarges our lives, by leading us to look at the things which are not seen, but which are eternal (2Co 4:18).

III. SORROW MAY OPEN OUR EYES TO NEW TRUTHS. The tears which blind us may also purge our vision. Shutting out the familiar sight of common scenes, they may open to us a new sight of heavenly truths. There have been revelations in sorrow. Jacob saw heaven opened when he was a fugitive for his life; Joseph interpreted dreams in prison, and Daniel in exile; Moses saw the burning bush in the wilderness; John beheld his great apocalypse when he was banished to Parinos. Poets learn in sorrow what they teach in song.

IV. IT IS CRUEL TO BE HARSH WITH THOSE WHOSE BLINDNESS COMES FROM SORROW. We must learn to distinguish this blindness from the lack of understanding which springs from a perverse heart, like that of the three friends (verse 4). Sinful and reckless scepticism deserves a severe rebuke. But this is very different from the doubt which is born of sorrow. In the hour of deepest grief it may be that all the heavens seem blurred and confused. The old landmarks are washed away in the deluge. We cannot see God, and his love is lost sight of. Even Christ in his bitter agony exclaimed, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

V. ULTIMATELY GOD WILL GIVE CLEAR VISION TO THE SORROW–BLINDED EYE. When he wipes away the tears he will restore the sight. The burden of the mystery will not be borne for ever. We have only to walk for a season in the darkness. “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning” (Psa 30:5). Then the very background of old troubles will throw up the new joys with the more intense splendour, and the previous blindness will make the new vision the more vivid and gladsome.W.F.A.

Job 17:9

Holding on and growing stronger.

This is a cheering thought breaking out of Job’s doleful despair Job is rising from pessimism to hope and confidence. He gives us a double picturethe righteous holding on his way, the man with clean hands growing stronger and stronger.

I. HOLDING ON. We see the righteous man quietly going forward, not turned aside by any obstacle, not cast down by any opposition, nor rushing madly forward, but not hanging back in fear, weariness, or indolencelike Goethe’s star, “unhasting and unresting.”

1. Pursuing a continuous coarse. The righteous man has a way, and it is to this that he holds on. We must have a purpose if our life is not to be broken and become a failure.

2. Keeping to the course. The idea is that of holding on to the one right course. Here is persistency and perseverance. The way being right must not be forsaken on account of any difficulties.

3. Overcoming opposition. There may be no brilliant victory. But the righteous man succeeds in holding on his way. That is enough. That secures his success. The constantly flowing stream cuts through the granite cliff and scoops a huge valley out of the mountain-side. Patient perseverance wins in the end.

4. Walking in a right character. It is the righteous man of whom Job makes the glad assertion. The bad man may hold on for a time, when he does not meet with serious opposition; but he is not upheld by principle, and he is doomed to a final overthrow; for though his mad is broad and popular, it leads to destruction. Only a true moral and spiritual character has strength to hold on continuously when severely tried; only this character will be blessed by being allowed by God to go on to victory. Time is the great test of character. Weak and unworthy people may do brilliant things, and achieve temporary triumphs. It is the character of true worth that is” faithful unto death,” and that holds on to the end. Many vessels that leave the port make shipwreck on their course; only those that are sound and well steered reach their desired haven.

II. GROWING STRONGER. The second thought is more emphatic. The progress is of the best kind.

1. With increase. The Christian course is more than a race; it is an ascent; it is a growth. God’s servant is not set to a treadmill. His walk is not a weary round. There is no monotony in the true Christian life. As he endures, so he is enlarged and enriched.

2. In strength. This is the special kind of increase to which Job refers. No doubt he was already beginning to feel it. He had lost wealth, but he had gained strength. Already the blows of adversity had begun to weld together tough fibres in his soul. He was stronger now than when all men bowed to him as the most powerful emir of the East. Here is the fruit of the victory won by overcoming opposition. Battle strengthens the hero. Climbing the “Hill Difficulty” develops the Pilgrim’s muscles. Now, God looks for energy in his servants. It is not enough that he shelters them in trouble. He gives them strength with which to hear it. “To them that have no might he increaseth strength” (Isa 40:29).

3. On condition of purity. The strength is for the man with clean hands. Sin enervates. Innocence is strong. The sinner may recover strength when his sin is forgiven and his heart purged. Therefore our business is to resist sin and cultivate purity of life; then God will give ever-increasing strength.W.F.A.

Job 17:11

Broken purposes.

Job seems to be sinking back into despair after the hopeful and confident utterance of verse 9. Perhaps the explanation of the situation lies in the difficulty the patriarch experiences in squaring the convictions of his rising faith with the actual condition in which he now lies. He wonders how his innocence can be vindicated, how he can bold on and increase in strength, although he is now persuaded that God will help him ultimately to do so. Meanwhile all his purposes are broken. Let us notice three kinds of broken purposes

I. BAD PURPOSES. Surely these should be broken. It is absurd to suppose that because an evil design has been conceived in the dark recesses of the imagination it must be effected. Bad purposes may be frustrated.

1. Broken by God. He knows the thoughts of men’s hearts, and can “frustrate their knavish tricks.” What we call accidents are providential events; and how often has the purpose of sin been checked by these events! The destroying angel mows down the Assyrian host (2Ch 32:21), A storm scatters the Armada. “Gunpowder treason” is discovered just before the meeting of Parliament.

2. Broken by their authors. The repentant sinner can stay his hand from further wickedness. He need feel under no obligation to fulfil his vows of evil. Indeed, there is no true repentance without the breaking off of bad purposes. Let us be thankful if all our bad purposes are not executed.

II. GOOD PURPOSES. These also may be broken.

1. By adverse events. God will not frustrate a really good design. But we may find it impossible to accomplish the best of purposes. God purposed the salvation of the world, yet how far is his good purpose even from fulfilment! We know that he must triumph finally. But in the mean time the spirit of evil hinders. Job’s purposes were broken by Satan. God’s purposes are not only hindered by Satan; they are checked by the free will of men who are reluctant to acknowledge them.

2. By their authors. Good resolutions have paved a large place. How many of the plans of youth have been carried out in manhood? and how many of them have melted away as idle dreams? How far have the purposes of the Christian life been adhered to? Has the old sin been avoided, as we vowed it should be? Have we served God with singleness of heart? Have we denied ourselves and followed Christ, as we dreamed of doing when we first gave him our hearts? Have we lived unselfishly and in charity towards our neighbours? Do not such questions rouse a sickening sense of failure? Verily we have broken our good purposes most miserably.

III. MISTAKES PURPOSES. These are of an intermediate character. Good in intention, they would not have turned out well if we had been permitted to execute them. Therefore God has frustrated them. Some of these are quite excellent, only they are altogether beyond our reach. The brave lifeboat crew tries to save the shipwrecked sailors, but, alas! the sea runs too high to permit them to approach, and their purpose is broken. Some whole lives seem to be failures simply because their owners have mistaken their vocation. The man who is a failure as a barrister might have become an excellent farmer; he has chosen an unsuitable sphere. We wish to do good. Then let us pray for light lest we blunder into mischief-making in the very effort to help our neighbours.W.F.A.

Job 17:15

The lost hope.

Not only are Job’s purposes broken off. His hope is lost. At all events, it seems to be melting away, so that all chance of seeing its accomplishment appears to have gone.

I. A VAIN HOPE MUST BE LOST. The reality will not depend on s man’s sanguine temperament, but upon its own causes. It is possible for a person to persuade himself into a condition of blissful confidence concerning his future, but the self-persuasion will not alter facts; and if he is drifting towards the rocks they will shatter him as surely as if he went in terror of their fatal neighbourhood. Note, then, some of he vain hopes that must perish.

1. The hope of success in cheating God. Some men live as hypocrites not merely to secure the favour of their fellows, but in the foolish fancy that by some jugglery they may even wriggle into the favour of Heaven. Such a hope must fail.

2. The hope of succeeding without God. This is not outrageously impudent like the hope last referred to. But it cannot succeed, for no man is sufficient of himself to overcome all the difficulties of life.

3. The hope of worldly sufficiency. It is thought that if Providence is kind, and a man has much laid by for days to come, he may look forward with confidence. This is the hope of the rich fool (Luk 12:20), and the unexpected changes of life, or death at last, must shatter it,

II. A TRUE HOPE MAY BE LOST.

1. The Christian hope. This is a true hope.

(1) It is founded on God’s strength, and he can never fail. We are encouraged to hope for salvation from One who is almighty.

(2) It is secured by God’s truth. “He is faithful that promised” (Heb 10:23). To grow faint-hearted with the Christian hope is to distrust God. The hope depends on his Word, which cannot be broken.

(3) It is guaranteed by Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. Christ is God’s Pledge of hope to his children. God would have wasted Christ on the world if he were not to fulfil the hopes that his Son raised.

2. The possibility of losing it. This must be considered in spite of the absolute security of the hope itself; for the hope may be good, and yet we may cease to hold it. The anchor may be sound, but the chain that unites it to the ship may be cut.

(1) The hope may only be lost to consciousness. We may cease to enjoy it, cease to feel the hope within us. Yet we may not really be cut off from what the great hope of Christ promises. Job exclaims, “Where is now my hope?” only because he is blinded with grief. Our despair is not the measure of our faith. The mountain has not vanished because the fog has hidden it. Doubt does not destroy truth. Many a despondent Christian will realize the hopes which he is too faint-hearted to enjoy in anticipation.

(2) The hope may be really lost. It is possible to see the hope afar off, as Balsam saw Israel’s hope, and yet to have no share in it ourselves. Or we may hold to the Christian hope in error without living the Christian life. Then we must be bitterly disappointed. Or, lastly, we may prove faithless and fall away from Christ. Therefore let us pray to be kept true, seeing that God is true, so that our fidelity is the only condition we now need to be assured of in order that our hope may not be lost.W.F.A.

Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary

CHAP. XVII.

Job appeals from men to God: the unmerciful dealing of men with the afflicted may astonish, but not discourage the righteous. Job professes that his hope is not in life, but in death.

Before Christ 1645.

Job 17:1. The graves are ready for me They are preparing a grave for me. See Houbigant.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

B.Job: Although oppressed by his disconsolate condition, he nevertheless wishes and hopes that God will demonstrate his innocence, against the unreasonable accusations of his friends

Job 16-17

(A brief preliminary repudiation of the discourses of the friends as aimless and unprofitable):

Job 16:1-5

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 souls 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 assuage your grief.

1. Lamentation on account of the disconsolateness of his condition, as forsaken and hated by God and men:

Job 16:6-17

6Though I speak, my grief is not assuaged;

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 sowed sackcloth upon my skin,

and defiled my horn in the dust.

16My face is foul with weeping,

and on my eyelids is the shadow of death;

17not for any injustice in mine hands;

also my prayer is pure.

2. Vivid expression of the hope of a future recognition of his innocence:

Job 16:18 to Job 17:9

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 neighbor!

22When a few years are come,

then I shall go the way whence I shall not return.

Job 17:1My 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 astonished 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.

3. Sharp censure of the admonitory speeches of the friends as unreasonable, and destitute of all power to comfort:

Job 17:10-16

10But as for you all, do ye return, and come now;

for I cannot find one wise man among you.

11My days are passed,

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 art 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.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

1. Heartlessly repulsed by his friends, and left without comfort, Job turns, more trustfully than in his previous apologies, to the God who evidenced Himself in his good conscience, of whom he cannot believe that He will leave him forever without testifying to his innocence, however cheerless a night of despair may in the meanwhile surround him. It is in the expression of his confidence, and of his inward yearning and waiting for this Divine testimony to his innocence (Job 16:18 to Job 17:9) that the significance of this discourse culminates, so far as it gives pleasing evidence of progress beyond Jobs former frame of mind. Along with this indeed it gives evidence that the spirit of hopeless and bitter complaint is, if not intensified, at least substantially unchanged and undiminished. The first principal division of the discourse (Job 16:6-17) which precedes that expression of yearning confidence in Gods help contains in particular an expression of cheerless lamentation over his condition, as one forsaken by God and men; while a shorter introduction prefaced to this division (Job 16:2-5), as well as the concluding section, or third division (Job 17:10-16) are particularly occupied with a bitter complaint on account of the misunderstanding and heartless conduct of the friends.The whole discourse comprises six long strophes, the first of which constitutes the introduction, extending through four verses, or ten stichs (Job 16:2-5), while the first and second divisions contain each two strophes (of 6, 7 verses, or 14 stichs), the third division, however, only one strophe (of 7 verses, or 14 stichs).

2. Exordium of the discourse, or introductory strophe: A short preliminary repudiation of the discourses of the friends as aimless, and destitute of all power to comfort: ch Job 16:2-5.

Job 16:2. I have heard (already) many such things (, multa, as in ch, Job 23:14), and miserable comforters are ye all. , lit. comforters of distress [Gen of attribute, Green, 254, 6] are burdensome comforters (consolatores onerosi, Jer.), who, instead of comfort, minister only trouble and distress; comp. Job 15:11.

Job 16:3. Are windy words (now) at an end? Comp. Job 15:2, where Eliphaz reproaches Job with windy speecha reproach which Job now pays back in the same coin.Or what vexes thee [addressed more particularly to Eliphaz] that thou answerest?, Hiph. of , to be sick, weak (see on Job 6:25), signifies to make sick, to afflict (Ewald, Schlott., Dillm.), or again to goad, incite, vex (Del.) [see the examples in notes on Job 6:25 favoring this definition]: not, to make sweet, to sweeten, as the Targ. interprets, as though were without further qualification = moreover is not = quum (Hirz.), but as in Job 6:11 quod: what vexes thee that thou answerest, or to answer.

Job 16:4. I also indeed would speak like you, i.e., would be minded to serve you with such like discourses as your own [Dillmann, Conant, Renan, Rodwell, etc., with good reason prefer to render the subjunctive I could, or might, rather than would].If your soul were instead of mine;i.e. in case you had my place, your persons were instead of mine. [Conant, however: Your soul is not to be taken as a periphrasis of the personal pronoun. Soul, the seat of intelligence, mental activity and emotion, stands as the representative of these faculties in man, and is specially appropriate here, where there is immediate reference to what is thought, felt and suffered. The force of the expression is lost therefore by substituting ye and me.]Would [or could] weave words against you. is not to make a league with words (Gesen. [Rodwell], etc.), nor again: to affect wisdom with words (Ewald), but to combine words, string them together like pearls. Instead of the simple accus of the object , the more choice construction with instrum. is used; comp. the following member, also Job 16:10; Jer 18:16; Lam 1:17 (Gesen. 138 [ 135] 1, Rem. 3). [When he says: I would range together, etc., he gives them to understand that their speeches are more artificial than natural, more declamations than the outgushings of the heart. Del.]And shake my head at you;viz., as a gesture of scorn and malicious pleasure; comp. Psa 22:8 [7]; Isa 37:22; Jer 18:16; Sir 12:18; Mat 27:39. It should be borne in mind that what is hateful in such conduct is not to be charged upon Job (who indeed only states what he could do if he had before him the friends, weak and miserable as he is now, and should then follow the promptings of the natural man), but on the friends, before whom Job here holds up as in a mirror the hatefulness of their own conduct. [In regard to the rendering of by against, and the explanation of as a gesture of scorn, see below on Job 16:5]

Job 16:5. Would [could] strengthen you with my mouth:i.e. with mere words, instead of with deeds of a love that wins the heart. [On the form with Tsere shortened to Hhirik, see Green, 104, h.]And the sympathy of my lips (, commisseration, sympathy, only here; comp. the phrase, similar in sound, , fruit of the lips, Isa 57:19) should assuage, soil, your grief. , to soothe, restrain, check, here without an obj. as in Isa 58:1. The following verse easily enables us to supply , as the object. [The E. V., Wem., Bar., Elz., etc., render this as a contrast with Job 16:4, as though Job, after there describing what he might do if they were in his place, describes here what, on the other hand, he really would do. But there is nothing to indicate such a contrast. Job 16:5 is most simply and naturally the continuation of Job 16:4.The irony of the passage is most keen and cutting. If you were in my place, says Job, if your soul were tried as mine is, I could speak windy words in abundance as you have done, I could string them out one after another, and nod my head to comfort: oh, yes! all such comfortsympathy of the head, of the mouth, of the lips, I could lavish upon youthat is cheap enough, as your conduct showsbut as for the heart, that is quite another matter! It will be seen from this paraphrase of Jobs language that a somewhat different view is taken of one or two expressions, particularly in Job 16:4, from that given above by Zckler, It seems unnecessary and unnatural to suppose that Job would in Job 16:4 describe himself as framing words against them, and indulging in gestures of malicious mockery, and then in Job 16:5 as strengthening and soothing them with wordsbut nothing more. Moreover the expressions of Job 16:4 would thus lose their point, there being no reason to suppose that the friends had shown any such malignity as would be thus suggested. What Job says is, that he could multiply words of cold formal sympathy, that he could string out such words upon them, or towards them; and again that he could make with his head the customary oriental gesture of condolence ( here like , see above, Job 2:11 and comp. Gesen. sub. 5.), this being by implication all the sympathy he had received from them.E.]

3. First Division. A lamentation concerning the cheerlessness of his condition, as one forsaken and persecuted by God and men. Job 16:6-17.

First Strophe: Job 16:6-11. From the friends, the miserable comforters, who leave him in his helplessness, he turns to himself, who is so greatly in need of sympathy, because God has delivered him over to the scorn and the cruelty of the unrighteous.

Job 16:6. [He bethinks himself whether he will continue, the colloquy further. Already in the lamentation of Job 3. Job had given vent to his grief, and solicited comfort. The colloquy thus far had shown that from them he had no comfort to expect. Should he then speak further, in order to procure at least some alleviation of his grief? but he cannot anticipate even this as the result of his speaking. He must accordingly be silent; yet even then he is no better off. Dillm.]If I speak (voluntative after , see Ew. 355, b) my grief is not assuaged; if I forbear (voluntative without , as in Job 11:17; Psa 73:16, etc.), what departs from me, viz. of my pain? how much of my pain goes away from me, do I lose? The unexpressed answer would naturally be; Nought! On , comp. Job 14:20.

Job 16:7. Neverthelessnow He hath exhausted me, viz. God, not the pain (, Job 16:6), which the Vulg., Aben-Ezra, etc., regard as the subj. The particle , which belongs to the whole sentence, signifies neither: of a truth, yea verily! (Ew.) nor only [=entirely], as though it belonged only to (Hirz., Hahn, etc.), but it has here an adversative meaning, and states, in opposition to the two previously mentioned possibilities of speaking and being silent, what is actually the case with Job; hence it should be rendered still, nevertheless, verum tamen: [Renan: Mais quoi! He is absolutely incapable of offering any resistance to his pain, and care has also been taken that no solacing word shall come to him from any quarter, Del. See the next clause].Thou hast desolated all my circle. here not rabble, as in Job 15:34, but sensu bonocircle of friends and family dependents (Carey: all my clan). [This mention of the family is altogether in place, seeing that the loss of the same must be doubly felt by him now that his friends are hostile to him. Schlott,]. The Pesh. reads all my testimony (), i.e., all that witness in my behalf, all my prosperity (so also Hahn among the moderns), to which however is not particularly suitable. Note moreover the transition, bearing witness as it does to the vivid excitement of the speakers feelings, from the declarations concerning God in the third person (which we find in the first member, and which appear again Job 16:9 seq.), and the mournful plaintive address to Him here and in Job 16:8, in which the description before us is directly continued.

Job 16:8. And hast seized me (not Thou makest me wrinkled, Vulg., Luther [E. V., Lee, Rodwell] or shrivelest me together, Del.for signifies to press together, to fasten firmly together; comp. Job 22:16. [Wordsworth attempts somewhat peculiarly to combine the two definitions: Thou hast bound me fast with wrinkles, as with a chain].It is become a witness, viz., the fact that thou hast seized me; the circumstance that God makes him suffer so severely isso at least it seemsa witness of his guilt. [This clause, taken in connection especially with the following parallelism, seems certainly to favor the rendering of the Vulg., E. V., etc. thou hast filled me with wrinkles. The witness against Job is naturally something which like his leanness is visible. The corrugation of the skin was a feature of elephantiasis more marked even than the emaciation of the body, and would hardly be omitted in so vivid a description of his condition as Job here gives. The primary signification of seizing, or compressing should not however be lost sight of; indeed it adds much to the terrible, force of the representation to retain it, and, with Wordsworth, to combine the two definitions, only in a somewhat different way from his; the true conception being that Godwho in Job 16:12 is represented as seizing Job and dashing him in pieces,is here represented as seizing, compressing him, until his body is shriveled, crumpled up into wrinkles.E.]. In opposition to Ewald, who changes into (= , see Job 6:2; Job 30:13), and translates accordingly: and calamity seized me as a witness comp. Del. and Dillm. on the passage: [who object that it would leave without much of its force and emphasis, and that the construction would be too condensed and artificial].And my leanness has appeared against me, accusing me to the face (speaking out against me, comp. Job 15:6 b). On = consumption, emaciation, comp. Psa 109:24. The signification rests on a metaphor similar to that by virtue of which a dried-up brook is called a liar (Job 6:15 seq.).

Job 16:9. His anger has torn and made war upon me; He has gnashed against me with His teeth; as mine enemy He has whetted His eyes against me. God, who is now again spoken of in the third person, is imagined as a ferocious beast of prey, who is enraged against Job. So above in Job 10:16.As to the tearing, comp. Hos 6:1; the making war, Job 30:21; the whetting or sharpening of the eyes, Psa 7:13 [12]: also the acies oculorum of the Romans, and the modern expression, to shoot a murderous look at any one

Job 16:10. Men also, like God, fall upon Job, as his enemies, resembling beasts of prey.They have opened wide their mouth against me (a gesture of insolent mockery, as in Psa 22:8 [Psa 22:7]; Jer. 57:4); with abuse (i.e., with abusive speech) they strike me on the cheeks (comp. Mic. 4:14 [Mic 5:1]; Lam 3:30; Joh 18:22; Joh 19:3); together they strengthen themselves against me, or again: they complete; fill themselves up [= fill up their ranks] against me, for means to gather themselves together to a (Isa 31:4), a heap; not to equip themselves with a full suit of armor, as Hirzel would explain, supplying .The whole of this lamentation, which reminds us of Psalms 22., is general in its form; it contemplates nevertheless the hostile attacks made by the friends on Job, as in particular the word together in the third member showsin hearing which the friends could not help feeling that they were personally aimed at in the strong expressions of the speaker, even as he on his part must have had his sensibilities hurt by such expressions as those of Eliphaz in Job 15:16 (see on the passage).

Job 16:11. God delivers me (comp. Deu 23:16 [15]) to the unrighteous, and casts me headlong into the hand of the wicked. , Imperf. Kal. of (contracted from , Ges., 70 [ 68], Rem. 3). [The preformative Jod has Metheg in correct texts, so that we need not suppose, with Ralbag, a similar in meaning to . Del.], prcipitem me dat; comp. LXX. and Symmachus . in the first member, the perverted one, the reprobate, the unrighteous, or againthe boy [der Bube, or the boyish, childish, knavish one] as Del. explains it, (referring to Job 19:18; Job 22:11), is used collectively for the plur., as the parallel term in b shows.

Second Strophe: Job 16:12-17. Continuation of the description of the cruel and hostile treatment he had received from God, notwithstanding his innocence.

Job 16:12. I was at ease, and He then shattered me. , secure, unharmed, suspecting no evil; comp. Job 21:23; Job 3:26., Pilp. of with strong intensive significationto shatter, to crush in pieces; so also the following , from , to beat in pieces, to dash to pieces. [He compares himself to a man who is seized by the hair of his head, and thrown down a precipice, where his limbs are broken. He probably alludes to some ancient mode of punishing criminals. Wemyss]. Observe the onomatopoetic element of these intensive forms, which furthermore are to be understood not literally or physically, but in a figurative sense of the sudden shattering of prosperity, and peace of soul.And set me for a mark. (from , , like from ), target, mark, as in 1Sa 20:20; Lam 3:12; comp. above in Job 7:20.

Job 16:13 expands the figure in Job 12. c.His arrows whirred about me. , not his troops, his archers (Rabb. [E. V., Noy., Con., Car., Rod., Elz., etc.]), but according to the unanimous witness of the ancient versions: his arrows, darts (from , , jacere, Gen 49:23; comp. Gen 21:10).(He cleaves my reins without sparing, pours out on the earth my gall (comp. Lam 2:11). Job here describes more specifically the terrible effect of Gods arrows, i.e., of the ailments inflicted on him by a hostile God (comp. Job 6:4, also the well-known mythological representations of classical antiquity), representing in accordance with the Hebrew conception the noblest and most sensitive of the inner organs of the body as affected, namely the reins, and also the gall-bladder. In view of the highly poetic character of the description, it is not necessary to inquire whether he conceives of the outpouring of the gall as taking place inwardly, without being at all perceptible externally, or whether, with a disregard of physiological possibility or probability, he represents it as something that is externally visible. It is moreover worthy of note that according to Arabic notions the rupture of the gall-bladder may really be produced by violent painful emotions. Comp. Delitzsch on the passage; also his Biblical Psychology [p. 317, Clark]; also my Theol. Naturalis, p. 618.

Job 16:14. He breaks through me breach upon breach. , comp. Job 30:14, here as accus. of the object, united to its cognate verb; comp. Gesen., 138 [ 135] Rem. 1.He runs upon me like a mighty warrior. In this new turn of the comparison Job, and in particular his body, appears as a wall, or a fortress, which is by degrees breached by missiles and battering-rams, and which God himself assaults by storm.

Job 16:15. I have sewed sackcloth upon my skin, i.e. I have girded around myself, and stitched together (about the loins) a closely fitting mourning garment of close hair (comp. in Isa 3:24; Isa 20:2; Isa 32:11; 1Ki 21:27; 2Ki 6:30, etc.). The sewing upon the skin is doubtless to be understood only figuratively of the laying on of a closely fitting garment, which it is not intended to lay off immediately. Possibly, indeed, there may be an allusion to the cracked swollen skin of one diseased with elephantiasis, in which the hair of the sackcloth (cilicium) must of necessity stick (see my Kritische Gesch. der Ascese, p. 82 seq.). [See also Art. Sackcloth in SmithsBib. Dict. Job does not say of it that he put it on, or slung it around him, but that he sewed it upon his naked body; and this is to be attributed to the hideous distortion of the body by elephantiasis, which will not admit of the use of the ordinary form of clothes. Delitzsch]. In any case in referring to this stiff, almost dead skin, as a part of his fearfully distorted body, he chooses the term , which appears in Hebrew only here (though more common in Aram. and Arab.), and in contrast with , the sound, healthy skin, may be translated hide; comp. the of the LXX.And have lowered (lit. stuck, see below) my hornthe symbol of power and of free manly dignity, comp. 1Sa 2:1; 1Sa 2:10; Psa 89:18 [Psa 89:17], Psa 89:25 [Psa 89:24]; Psa 92:11 [sa 92:10]; etc., Luk 1:69into the dust:this being a sign of his humiliation, of his consciousness of the defeat, and of the deep sorrow which he has been called to endure. For this lowering of the horn into the dust of the earth is the direct opposite of lifting up the horn (Psa 83:3 [2] as a symbol of the increase of power and dignity. is with Saad., Rosenm., Ew., Hirz., Dillm., etc., to be derived from , introire, of frequent use in the Aram, and Arab., and thus signifies to stick into, to dig into. If it were the Pil. of , to act, meaning accordingly to abuse, or to defile (Targ., Pesch., Delitzsch [E. V., Schlott.] etc.), the before the object would not be wanting; comp. Lam 1:22; Lam 2:20; Lam 3:51. To be preferred to this is the translation I roll my horn in the dust (Umbr., Vaihing., Hahn), a rendering which is etymologically admissible.

Job 16:16. My face is burning red with weeping. (instead of which we ought perhaps with the Kri to read the plural , unless we explain the fem., like in Job 14:19, in accordance with Gesen., 146, [ 143], 3), Pualal of , an intensive passive form, expressing the idea of being exceedingly reddened, glowing red (comp. Lam 1:20; Lam 2:11). [From the same root comes the name Alhambra, applied to the building from its color. See Delitzsch].And on mine eyelashes is a death-shade, i.e., by reason of continuous weeping, and the weakening thereby of the power of sight, my eyes are encompassed by a gloom of night: [an explanation which Schlottmann characterizes as flat and prosaic. The idea is rather that in Jobs despondent mood he conceived of the shadow of death as gathering around. He had well-nigh wept himself out of life].

Job 16:17. Although no violence is in my hands (or clings to them) and my prayer is pure.Job emphasizes his innocence here in contrast not only with Job 16:16, but with the whole description thus far given of the persecution which he had endured, Job 16:12-16. is used here, as in Isa 53:9, as a conjunction. in the sense of notwithstanding that, although, (Ewald, 222, b), not as a preposition, as Hirzel explains it (in spite of non-violence).

4. Second Division. A vivid expression of the hope of a future recognition of his innocence: Job 16:18Job 17:9.

First Strophe: Job 16:18ch. Job 17:2. [His confidence in God as his witness and vindicatorhis only hope in view of the speedy approach of death].

Job 16:18. Earth, cover not thou my blood. i.e., drink it not up, let it lie open to view, and cry to heaven as a witness to my innocence, Comp. Gen 4:10; Eze 24:7 seq.; Isa 26:21. [As according to the tradition it is said to have been impossible to remove the stain of the blood of Zachariah, who was murdered in the court of the temple, until it was removed by the destruction of the temple itself. Delitzsch. According to the old belief no rain or dew: would moisten the spot marked by the blood of a person murdered when innocent, or change its blighted appearance into living green. Ewald]. The second member also expresses essentially the same meaning: and let my cry have no resting-place, i.e., let not the cry for vengeance arising from my shed blood (or the cry of my soul poured out in my blood, Gen 9:4, etc.), be stilled, let it not reach a place of rest, before it appears as my (Job 19:25) to deliver and avenge me. [Therefore in the very God who appears to him to be a bloodthirsty enemy in pursuit of him, Job nevertheless hopes to find a witness of his innocence: He will acknowledge his blood, like that of Abel, to be the blood of an innocent man. It is an inward irresistible demand made by his faith which here brings together two opposite principlesprinciples which the understanding cannot unitewith bewildering boldness. Job believes that God will even finally avenge the blood which His wrath has shed, as blood that has been innocently shed. Delitzsch].

Job 16:19. Even now behold in heaven my witness, and my attestor (, LXX. , an Aram, synonym of , witness, comp. Gen 31:47) in the heights.In regard to as a synonym, of , comp. Job 25:2; Job 31:2. , even now, (not now however, Ewald) sets the present condition of Job, apparently quite forsaken, but in reality still supported and upheld by God as a heavenly witness of his innocence, in contrast with a future period, when he will be again publicly acknowledged and brought to honor. This more prosperous and happy future he does not yet indeed realize so vividly as later in Job 19:25 seq. That of which he speaks here is only the contrast between his apparent forsakenness, and the fact that, as he firmly believes, God in heaven is still on his side. [If his blood is to be one day avenged, and his innocence recognized, he must have a witness of the same. And reflecting upon it he remembers that even now, when appearances are all against him, he has such a witness in God in heaven. Dillm.].

Job 16:20. [The conduct of the friends in denying, nay in mocking his innocence, compels him to cling to this God in heaven. Dillm.].They who mock me (lit., my mockers, with strong accent on mockers) are my friends. [It is worthy of remark that the word here used, melits, signifies also an interpreter, an intercessor, and is employed in that sense; below, Job 33:23; comp. Gen 42:23; 2Ch 32:31; Isa 43:27; and some, as Professors Lee and Carey, have assigned that sense to the word here, My true interpreters are my friends; and they suppose in this word, here and in Job 33:23, a prophetic reference to the Mediator. But the Auth. Ver. appears to be correct; and the similarity of the words serves to bring out the contrast between the unkindness of man, and the mercy of God. Words.].To Eloah mine eye poureth tears:i.e. although my friends mock me, instead of taking me under their protection, and attesting my innocence, I still direct to God a look of tearful entreaty that He would do justice, etc.[An equally strong emphasis lies here on subj. and predicate: My friends stands in contrast with God; my mockers in contrast with my witness, Job 16:19; and finally also my mockers in contrast with my friends. Schlottm.]. Ew., Dillm., etc., take the first member, less suitably, as assigning the reason for the second: because my friends are become such as mock me, mine eye pours out tears to Eloah, etc.

Job 16:21 states the object of the weeping (i.e., the yearning) look which he lifts up to God. This object is twofold: (1) That He would do justice to a man before God: lit. that He would decide (, voluntative expressing the final end, as in Job 9:33) for the man against Eloah, or with Eloah ( as in Psa 55:19 [18]; Job 94:16 [15] of an opponent); i.e., that before His own bar He would pronounce me not guilty, that He would cease to misunderstand and to persecute me as an enemy, but would rather assist me to my right, and so appear on my side. (2) (That He would do justice) to the son of man against his friend, that He would justify me against my human friend ( distributively for ), and set me forth as innocentwhich would result immediately upon his justification before Gods bar. For the interchange of man and son of man in poetic parallelism, comp. Psa 8:5. It is not necessary to adopt Ewalds suggestion (Jahrb. der bibl. Wissenschaft, IX. 38) to read , instead of , in order to acquire a more suitable construction for . The construction according to the common reading presents nothing that is objectionable, scarcely anything that is particularly harsh. The influence of the of the first member extends forward to (as in. Job 15:3), and the before = in respect to, against, supplies the place of the of the first member. It would be much harsher were we, with Schlottmann, Ewald (in Comm.), and Olsh. to translate the second member: and judges man against his friend, a rendering which is condemned by the usage of the language, for with accus. of person never signifies to judge, but always to punish, reprove. [Job appeals from God to God: he hopes that truth and love will finally decide against wrath. Schlottmann aptly recalls the saying of the philosophers, which applies here in a different sense from that in which it is meant: Nemo contra Deum, nisi Deus ipse. Del. The prayer of Job is fulfilled in Job 42:7; and that too in a sense quite otherwise than that which Job had ventured to hope for, even in this life. This is again one of the passages where the poet permits his hero, in an exalted moment, to enjoy a presage of the issue. Dillm.] Concerning the theological significance of the wish here expressed by Job, that he might, be justified by God before God as well as before men; comp. the Doctrinal and Ethical Remarks.

Job 16:22. Giving the reason why Job longs to be vindicated, arising from the fact that his end is near, and that for him who has once died there is no prospect of a return to this life, [This, however, is not to be understood as a reason given why God should interpose speedily to vindicate him before his death. Rather the argument, is drawn from the hopelessness of his physical condition. Death was sure and near; that recovery which the friends promised on condition of repentance was out of the question: hence if he is to be vindicated, it must be by God, who can do it when he is gone.]For years that may be numbered are coming on, and by a path without return shall I go hence.The thought is substantially the same as in Job 7:7-10; and Job 10:20 seq. , lit. years of number (Gen 34:30; Psa 105:12), are years that may be numbered, i.e. a few years (LXX: ), by which we are naturally to understand those which still remain before his death, the remaining years of his life (not all the years of his life, as Hahn and Del. explain). For (in regard to the form, comp. on Job 12:6) can only mean: they are coming on, they stand before me, not: they are passing away (transeunt, Vulg., etc.), nor: their end is coming on (Hahn, Del.). That Job here announces the sad issue in which the rapid and inevitably fatal course of the elephantiasis generally resulted, is shown by the conclusion of the discourse, Job 17:11-16.

Job 17:1 [the chapter-division here being manifestly errroneous] continues the statement of the reason given in Job 16:22. It consists of abrupt sob-like ejaculations of which it may be truly said with Oetinger that they form the requiem, which Job chants for himself even while yet living.My spirit is disturbed, so correctly most moderns, taking in the sense of the spirit or power. The translation: my breath is corrupt, or destroyed (De Wette, Del. [B.V., Rod., Elz., Con., Ber.], etc.), is less suitable here to the connection, which requires, as the subject of Jobs expression, not that single symptom of a short and fetid breath [which would be a much less conclusive indication that his days were numbered than others which he might have mentioned], referred to also in Job 7:15; Job 19:17; but requires rather some sign of the incipient dissolution of the whole psychical bodily organism, a failure of the vital principle.My days are extinct ( = , Job 6:17, which some MSS. exhibit here also); graves await me [Rodney: for me the tombs!]. Comp. the Arabic proverb: to be a grave-companion (Sschib el-kubr); also the familiar saying of Luther: to walk on the grave; and the modern expression: to stand with one foot in the grave.

Job 17:2. Verily mockery surrounds me: and on their quarreling mine eye must dwell.So substantially Welte, Arnh., Del., Dillm. [Schlott,, Con., Words.], whose rendering of this difficult verse is the most satisfactory; for (1) It is best to take , as in Job 1:11; Job 22:20; Job 31:36, etc., as a formula of asseveration=verily, truly. (2) (or according to another reading is an abstract term, formed from = mockery, scoffing (not deception, as Hirzel renders it); to render it as a concrete term in the sense of mockers [E. V., Noyes, etc.], or beguiled, is at variance with the laws governing the formation of Hebrew words (see Ew. 153, a; 179, a, b).(3) is Inf. Hiph. with suffix, from , which means in Hiph. to make refractory, to incite to strife, to contend with one. The word is written with Dagh. dirimens in , comp. Job 9:18; Joe 1:17, etc.(4) , Jussive or Voluntative form of , to lodge, to tarry (comp. Job 19:4; Job 29:19; Job 31:32), is a pausal form for , which occurs also in Jdg 19:20, the use of which in a non-pausal position seems to be purely arbitrary, or rests possibly on euphonic grounds (the liquids l and n in juxtaposition being treated as though they were gutturals: comp. Ewald, 141, b, Rem. 2). (5) The sense of the entire verse, according to the construction here given, is decidedly more suitable to the context: Of a truth it is mocking me ( , lit. mockery is with me, befalls me) to force me, who am standing on the verge of the grave to confess a guilt from which I know myself to be free; and such hateful quarrelsome conduct it is that I must have continually before my eyes!Other renderings are e.g.a. That of the Pesh., Vulg., and recently of Hirzel, which takes in sense of deception, illusion. Thus Hirzels rendering is: If deception is not with me, then let them continually henceforth quarrel. b. That of Rosenmller: annon illusiones mecum, et in adversando eorum pernoctat oculus meus.c. That of Ewald (in part also of Eichhorn, Umbr.): If only I were not mocked and mine eye were not obliged to dwell, etc.d. The rendering in part similar to the latter, of Vaih. and Heiligst.Oh, that mockery did not surround me! then could mine eye abide in peace with their contention!e. That of Stickel and Hahn: Or are there not around me those who are deluded? must not mine eye dwell on their contention?[f. That of Renan: May it please God that traitors might be far from me, and that mine eye be never more afflicted with their quarrels!]

Second Strophe: Job 17:3-9. Repetition of the yearning and trustful supplication to God as the only remaining attestor or witness of his innocence now remaining to him in view of the heartless coldness, nay the hostility of his human friends.Oh, lay down [now], be Thou bondsman for me with Thyself! who else will furnish surety to me? The thought is not substantially different from that in Job 16:21, only that the representation which there predominates of an adjudication in favor of Jobs innocence is here replaced by that of pledging or binding ones self as security for it. For all the expressions of the verse are borrowed from the system of pledging. With the Imper. is to be supplied, as the following lowing shows, an accus. of the object, a pledge, security. It is not necessary with Reiske and Olsh. to change to , arrhabonem meam. The following , indicating the person with whom the pledge is deposited, again represents God, precisely as in Job 16:21, as being, so to speak, divided, or separated into two persons. The word of entreaty (which appears also in Isa 38:14. and Psa 119:122, and which is here used with the accus. of the person following in the sense of representing any one mediatorially as or ) is replaced in the second member by the circumstantial phrase , to give surety by striking hands. For this is the meaning of the phrase, which elsewhere reads , or (Pro 6:1; Pro 17:18; Pro 22:26), or simply (Pro 11:15). Here, however, where, instead of the person, the hand of the person is mentioned (, instead of the simple , which, according to Pro 6:1, we might be led to expect), the reflexive Niphal is used; hence literally: who will strike himself [scil. his hand] into my hand; i. e. who will (by a solemn striking of hands, as in a pledge) bind himself to me to vindicate publicly my innocence? What man will do this if Thou, God, doest it not?

Job 17:4 assigns a reason for this prayer for Gods intervention as his security in the shortsightedness and narrow-mindedness of the friends: for Thou hast closed [lit. hid] their heart to [lit. from] understanding (to [from] a correct knowledge in respect to my innocence), therefore Thou wilt not let them prevail: lit. wilt not exalt them, i. e. above me, who am unjustly injured by them, but wilt rather at last confound them by demonstrating my innocence (as actually came to pass, Job 42:7). , Imperf. Pil. of with plur. suffix, is a contraction of , with omission of Dagh. forte in on account of the preceding long . The correction (suggested by Dillm. with a reference to Job 31:15; Job 41:2 Kri) is unnecessary, as also the explanation of as a Hithpael noun, signifying striving upward, improvement, victory (Ew.).

Job 17:5 continues the consideration of the unfriendly conduct of the friends. Friends are delivered for a spoil, while the eyes of their (lit. of his) children languish., a share of booty, spoil (according to Num 31:36) denotes here in particular, as the word makes probable, mortgaged property, an article in pledge, distrained from a debtor by a judicial execution; (for , comp. 1Ki 14:2; Jer 13:21) signifies to advertise and offer for sale such a pledged article in court; or, more simply and briefly, to distrain, to seize upon by means of a judicial execution. The subject of is indefinite [one exposes friends, i. e., friends are exposed] (comp. Job 6:20). In the object Job certainly points immediately to himself, for certainly he only was the victim of the heartless conduct of the three. He purposely, however, expresses himself by a general proposition; for his whole description is as yet only ideal, imaginative. In the second member, as the sing, suffix in shows, he again speaks only of himself as the one who was ill-treated, continuing the description (by means of an enallage of number, similar to that in Job 18:5; Job 24:5; Job 24:16; Job 27:23), as though he had in a written or . Hence literally: and the eyes of his children languish, or although the eyes of his children languish (Ewald, Stickel, Heiligst., Hahn, Dillmann, etc.). Many of the ancients, and also De Wette, Delitzsch [Noyes, Con., Renan, Barnes, Wem., Car., Wordsw., Rod.], etc., translate: Whoso spoileth friends, the eyes of his children must fail (or, optatively, may the eyes of his children fail! So Rosenmller, Vaihinger). [The E. V. adopts the same view of the general construction, but less appropriately takes in the sense of flattery: He that speaketh flattery to his friends, even the eyes of his children shall fail.] In this way, doubtless, the harshness of that change of number is avoided; but so to predict (or even to wish for) the punishment of the evil-doer seems here too little suited to the context, and especially does not agree with the contents of the following verse. [But it certainly agrees very well with the last member of the preceding verse, the thought of which it both confirms and expands. God would not, could not, favor the friends, for they had betrayed friendship, and thus had incurred judgment in which their posterity would share. Job 17:5 may be, as conjectured by some, a proverbial saying quoted by Job to emphasize Job 17:4 b. The pining of the eyes is a frequent figure for suffering. This last construction has in its favor, therefore: (1) That it is suitable to the connection. (2) That it avoids the harshness of the other construction, with its sudden change of number, and its strained introduction of the reference to the betrayed ones children, which is particularly pointless when applied to the childless Job. (3) It takes away from Job 17:4 the isolation which belongs to it, according to the other construction, and provides a much simpler transition from Job 17:4 to Job 17:5.E.]

Job 17:6 seq. Continued description of the unfriendly conduct of the friends, only Unit the same is now directly charged on God. And He (viz., God, who is manifestly to be understood here as the subject of the verb) has set me for a proverb to the world., a substant. infinitive (comp. Job 12:4), means a proverb, simile, sensu objective, hence an object of ridicule [or, as in E. V., by-word]. , lit. nations, denotes here not the races living around Job (e. g., those gipsy-like troglodytes who are more fully described in Job 24:30, and who, Delitzsch thinks, may possibly be intended here), but the common people generally (vulgus, plebs), hence equivalent to the great multitude, the world; comp. Pro 24:24. And I must be one to be spit upon in the face. (only here in the O. T.) denotes spittle, an object spit upon; is in the closest union with it (comp. Num 12:14; Deu 25:9). A is accordingly one into whose face any body spits, the object of the most unqualified public detestation. Comp. Job 30:9 seq., from which passage it also appears that Job speaks here not only of that which his friends did to him, but that he uses in a more comprehensive sense.

Job 17:7. Then mine eye became dim with grief (, as in Job 6:2; and comp. Job 16:16; Psa 6:8 [7]; Job 31:10 [9]), and all my members (lit. my frames, bodily frames, or structures) are as shadows [better on account of the generic , as a shadow], i. e., so meagre and emaciated, like intangible shadows, or phantoms; comp. Job 19:20.

Job 17:8. The upright are astonished at thisbecause they cannot understand how things can come to such a pass with one of their sort. And the innocent is roused against the ungodlylit. stirred up by angerin an opposite sense to that of Job 31:29, describing the innocent mans sense of justice as being aroused on account of the prosperity of the , comp. Psa 37:1; Psalms 73. Hirzel.

Job 17:8. Nevertheless the righteous holds fast on his way (the way of piety and rectitude in which he has hitherto walked), and he that is of clean hands (lit. and the clean-of-hands, , as in Pro 22:11) increaseth in strength (, of inward increase, or growth of strength, as in Ecc 1:18).The whole verse is of great significance as an expression of the cheerful confidence in his innocence and deliverance which Job reaches after the bitter reflections of Job 17:5 seq. So far from realizing the reproach of Eliphaz in Job 15:4, that he would destroy piety and diminish devotion before God, he holds fast on his godly way, yea, travels it still more joyously and vigorously than before (comp. Doctrinal and Ethical Remarks). [These words of Job (if we may be allowed the figure) are like a rocket, which shoots above the tragic darkness of the book, lighting it up suddenly, although only for a short time. Del.]

5. Third Division: Sixth Strophe. Severe censure of the admonitions of the friends, as devoid of understanding, and without any power to comfort, Job 17:10-16.

Job 17:10. But as for ye all ( for as in 1Ki 22:28, and Mic 1:2 [corresponding more to the form of a vocative clauseDel.]; the preceding is here written , with sharpened tone, for the sake of assonance)come on again, I pray., instead of the Imper. , which we might have expected, but which cannot stand so well at the beginning of the clause (comp. Ew., 229) [besides that, as Delitzsch remarks, the first verb is used adverbially, iterum, denuo, according to Gesen., 142 ( 139), 3 aand not either of a physical return, as though, irritated by his words, they had made a movement to depart (Renan), or of a mental return from their hostility (see Job 6:29).E.]. In this sense it is followed by the supplementary verb in the Imperf., connected with it by . I shall nevertheless not find a wise man among youi. e., your heart remains closed against a right understanding of my condition (see Job 17:4), however often and persistently you may attempt, to justify your attacks upon me. [He means that they deceive themselves concerning the actual state of the case before them; for in reality he is meeting death without being deceived, or allowing himself to be deceived, about the matter. Del.]

Job 17:11 seq. prove this charge of a defective understanding on the part of the friends by setting forth the nearness of Jobs end, and the almost complete exhaustion of his strength: this fact is fatal to their preconceived opinion as to the possibility of a joyful restoration of his prosperity, such as they had frequently set forth as depending on his sincere repentance. My days are gone (being quite near their endcomp. Job 16:22), my plans are broken off (, lit. connections, combinations, from , to bind together, the same as elsewhere, Job 21:27; Job 42:2;but not sensu malo, but in the good sense of the plans of his life which had been destroyed), the nurslings [Pfleglinge] of my heart. are things which are coveted and earnestly Bought after, favorite projects, plans affectionately cherished; comp. , to long after, Psa 21:3 [from which root Dillmann suggests the present noun may be derived ( for , like for from ), which would give at once the meaning, desires, coveted treasures. So apparently Zckler. If, according to the prevailing view, it be taken from , the meaning will be peculia, cherished possessions.E.] Not so suitable is the definition possessions (from , possidere, after Obad. 17:17 and Isa 14:23), while the rendering (LXX.), cords or bands [or, as Del. suggests, joints, instead of valves of the heart] (Gekat., Ewald) is entirely unsupported, and decidedly opposed to the laws of the language.

Job 17:12. They change night into day (comp. Isa 5:20), inasmuch, to wit, as they picture before me joyous anticipations of life (thus Eliphaz in Job 5:17 seq.; Bildad in Job 8:20 seq.; Zophar in Job 11:13 seq.), while not-withstanding I have before me only the dark night of death. Light is to be near (lit. is near, i. e., according to their assertions) in the presence of darkness, i. e., there where the darkness is still present, or in conspectu;, here therefore = coram, comp. Job 23:17 (so Umbreit, Vaih., Del.). Others (Ew., Hirz., Stick., Dillm.) take in the comparative sense: light is nearer than the face of darkness, i. e., than the visible darkness, which, however, is less suitable in the parallelism. The same is true of the explanation of Welteand they bring the light near to the darkness; of Rosenmllerlight is near the darkness, and similarly the LXX.; of Schlottmannlight, to which the darkness already draws near; of RenanAh! but your light resembles the darkness! etc.Note still further that here in Job 17:11-12, where the tone of lamentation is resumed, those short, sob-like ejaculations appear again, which we have already met with above in Job 17:1-2. [The explanation here given does not seem to harmonize perfectly with the context. With Job 17:10 Job seems to dismiss the friends from his present discourse. He flings that verse at them as a parting contemptuous challenge, and so takes his leave of them. With Job 17:11 he enters on the pathetic elegiac strain with which he closes each one of his discourses thus far (see Job 7:22; 10:20 seq.; Job 14:18 seq.). Job 17:11-12 are characterized, as Zckler justly remarks, by brief, sob-like ejaculations (as in Job 17:1-2), which are more befitting the elegy of a crushed heart than the sarcasm of a bitter spirit. Job makes himself the theme of the whole passage from Job 17:11 to Job 17:16. He is pre-occupied exclusively with his own lamentable condition and prospects, not with the course of his friends, any reference to which after Job 17:10 would interrupt the self-absorption of his sorrow. Supposing Job then to be occupied with himself solely, it follows that is to be taken impersonally, and the verse may be explained eithera. With Noyes: Night, hath become day to me (i. e. I have sleepless nights; I am as much awake by night as by day), the light bordereth on darkness (i. e. the day seems very short; the daylight seems to go as soon as it is come). Or b. We may translate: Night will (soon) take the place of day, light (in which I am tarrying for a brief season, awaiting my abode in Sheol, Job 17:13) is not far from darkness ( , prope abest ab; LXX. = ., according to Olympiodorus.The use of with , which Delitzsch objects to this rendering, is finely poetic. The darkness faces him, stares upon him, close at hand, just on the other side of this narrow term of light which is left to him). In favor of b may be urged: (1) The use of the fut. , following the preterites in Job 17:11.(2) The analogy of Isa 5:20, where means to put for, exchange, substitute. (3) It preserves the continuity of Jobs reflections on his own condition, and his immediate prospects. (4) The thought is in admirable harmony with the description which immediately follows, in which he represents himself as lingering on the verge of Sheol, awaiting his speedy departure thither, preparing his couch in that darkness which is so near, etc.E.]

Job 17:13 seq. show how far Job was right in seeing before his eyes nothing but night and darkness, and in giving up the hope of a state of greater prosperity which was held up before him by the friends, Job 17:13-14 form the conditional protasis, introduced by on which all the verbs in both verses depend, Job 17:15 being the apodosis, introduced by consec. [Of which view of the construction, however, Delitzsch remarks) There is no objection to this explanation so far as the syntax is concerned; but there will then be weighty thoughts which are also expressed in the form of fresh thoughts, for which independent clauses seem more appropriate, under the government of as if they were pre-suppositions. And see below.]

Job 17:13. If I hope for the underworld as my house [or abode], have spread in the darkness my couch.[Delitzsch agrees with the E. V. in the construction: If I wait, it is for Sheol as my house. Gesenius, Frst and Conant take = , Lo! as in Hos 12:12; Jer 31:20.]

Job 17:14. If I have cried out to the grave: Thou art my father!, grave (comp. Job 9:31) in Heb. is strictly speaking feminine, here, however, it is construed ad sensum as a masculine (as is the case elsewhere with such feminines as , ,, etc., comp. Ges., Thes., p. 1878). It is unnecessary with the LXX., Vulg., Pesh., to take here in the sense of death, or with Nachman, Rosenm,, Schlottm., Del. [E. V., Con., Car.], etc., to assign to it the meaning: corruption, rottenness as though it were derived from , not from , fodere: moreover the existence of such a second substant. = corruption is susceptible of certain proof from no other passage. In regard to the bold poetic expression here given to the inward familiarity of Job with the state of death which lay before him, comp. Ps. 88:19 [Psa 88:18]; Pro 7:4; also below Job 30:29.

Job 17:15. Apodosis: Where then (as to , which, notwithstanding the accents, is to be drawn into union with the preceding , where? comp. on Job 9:24) is (now) my hope? Yea, my hope, who sees it?i. e., I who exhibits it to me as really well founded? who discloses it to me? In both clauses one and the same hope is intended, that viz. of the restoration of his prosperity in this life, even before death [this hope, Dillmann remarks, being the hope which, according to the friends, he should have, not the hope which, according to Job 17:13, he really has].

Job 17:16. To the bars of the grave it sinks down, when at the same time there is rest in the dust.The subject here also is , Job 17:15, this hope being regarded as single, although the expression there was doubled. is a poetic alternate form for (Ew., 191, Gesen., 47, Rem. 3), not third pers. plur., as the old translators [and E. V.] rendered the form, and as among moderns [Green, 88, Schlottm.], Bttcher and Dillmann take it, the latter supposing that the hope which Job really had, mentioned in Job 17:13, and the hope attributed to him by the friends in Job 17:15, are the two subjects of the verb. are bars of the underworld, of the realm of the dead, not its clefts (Bttcher), nor its bounds (Hahn); for again in Exo 25:13 seq.; Job 27:6 seq.; Hos 11:6, signifies carrying poles, or cross-beams (vectes). And whereas, according to many other passages, Sheol is represented as provided with doors or gates (Job 38:17; Isa 38:10; Psa 9:14 [ Psa 9:13]; Psa 107:18), its cross-beams or bars signify essentially the same with its gates (comp. Lam 2:9). In , at the same time (not together [E. V.], as Hahn renders it, understanding it to be affirmed of the descending hope, and of Job at his death). Job expresses a thought similar to that in Job 14:22, the thought, namely, that the rest of his body in the dust coincides in time with the descent of the soul to Hades. , pausal form for , rest, signifies here the rest of the lifeless body in the grave: comp. Isa 26:19; Psa 22:30 [29].

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. The central point of this new reply of Jobsand it is that which principally shows progress on the part of the sorely afflicted sufferer out of his spiritual darkness to a clearer perception and a brighter frame of mindlies in the expression of a yearning hops in his future justification by God, which is found in the last section but one of the discourse, and which constitutes the real kernel of the argument. Inasmuch as the friends, instead of ministering to him loving sympathy and true comfort were become his mockers (Job 16:20), he finds himself all the more urgently driven to God alone as his helper, and the guardian of his innocence. Hence it is that he now suddenly turns to the same God, whom he had just before described in the strongest language as his ferocious, deadly enemy and persecutor, as well as the author of the suffering inflicted on him even by his human enemies, and, full of confidence, calls Him his witness in heaven, and his attestor on high (Job 16:19), who is already near to him, and who will not permit the earth to drink up his blood, which cries out to heaven, and thus to silence his self-vindication (Job 16:18). Nay, more: he lifts up his tearful eye with courageous supplication to God, praying Him that He would do justice to him before Himself, that He would represent him before His own judicial tribunal, interceding in his behalf, acquitting him, and thus vindicating his innocence against his human accusers (Job 16:21). We see distinctly here how Jobs idea of God becomes brighter in that it becomes dualized (in that he prays to God Himself, the author of his sufferings, as his deliverer and helper). The God who delivers Job to death as guilty, and the God who cannot leave him unvindicatedeven though it should be only after deathcome forth distinct and separate as darkness from light out of the chaos of temptation.Thus Job becomes here the prophet of the issue of his own course of suffering; and over his relation to Eloah and to the friends, of whom the former abandons him to the sinners death, and the latter declare him to be guilty, hovers the form of the God of the future, which now breaks through the darkness, from whom Job believingly awaits and implores what the God of the present withholds from him (Del. i. 310311).The same duality between the God of the present as a God of terror, and the Redeemer-God of the future, becomes apparent in the earnest entreaty which is further on addressed to God, that He would become a bondsman with Himself for Job, seeing that He is the only possible guarantor of his innocence (Job 17:3). Not less does this duality between a God of truth, who knows and attests his righteous conduct, and a God of absolute power and fury, lie also at the foundation of the confident declaration which concludes this whole section, according to which the righteous man, untroubled by the suspicions and attacks of his enemies, holds fast on his way, and in respect of his innocence and purity only increases in strength (Job 17:9). That to which Job here gives expression, primarily indeed in the form of entreaty, of yearning desire, or as an inference from religious and ethical postulates, acquires, when considered in its historical connection with his deliverance, the significance of an indirect prophecy, referring not only to the actual historical issue of his own suffering (which in fact ends with just such a vindication as he here wishes for himself), but also in general to the completed reconciliation of God with sinful humanity in Christ.For this work of reconciliation was accomplished, according to 2Co 5:19, precisely as Job here wishes for it. God was in Christ, and reconciled the world to Himself. He officiated as Judge, acquitting, and as Advocate, vindicating, in one person. He became in Christ His own Mediator with humanity (Gal 3:20), and caused that suretyship with Himself to come to pass, which Job here wishes and longs for, in that He sent His own Son to be the Mediator (, 1Ti 2:5; Heb 12:24), or a surety (, Heb 7:22) of the New Covenant, and so established for fallen humanity, subject to sin and to death, its penalty, an eternal redemption, which is ever renewed in each individual. The older expositors have for the most part failed to recognize this profounder typical and prophetic sense of the passage, obscured as it is by the erroneous translations of the verses in question given by the LXX. and the Vulgate. Comp. however the remarks of Cocceius below on Job 16:19 seq.

2. Although however Job seems by the profound truth and the striking power of these bold prophetic anticipations of his future vindication to be making most significant advances in the direction of more correct knowledge, and to be at any rate far above the limited and elementary conceptions of his friends, there is nevertheless in the midst of all this soaring of his purer and better consciousness to God one thing perceptibly wanting. It is the penitent confession of his sins. He not only calls himself a righteous man, and pure of hands, (Job 17:9), but with all earnestness he regards himself as such (comp. Job 16:17). He will by no means admit that his suffering is in any sense, or in any degree whatever, the punishment of his sins. In this particular he falls short of that which he himself has before this expressly conceded (Job 14:4). As the friends, in consequence of their superficial judgment, greatly exaggerated his guilt, so he, by no means free as yet from Pelagian self-righteousness, exaggerates his innocence. The justification which he wishes and hopes for, is not the New Testament , that Divine act of grace declaring the repentant sinner righteous. It is only the Divine attestation of an innocence and freedom from sin, which he deems himself to possess in perfection. It thus stands very nearly related to that lawyers willing to justify himself which is mentioned in Luk 10:29; and is altogether different from that disposition which at last the actual justification and restoration of Job to favor produced (Job 42:6). Againwhat he says in Job 16:15 seq. of thrusting his horn into the dust, of continuous weeping, of wearing sackcloth, has no reference to signs of actual repentance (a view often met with in the ancient commentators); these things are simply indications of physical pain, referring to a humiliation which proceeded less out of a complete and profound acquaintance with sin, than out of the sense of severe painful suffering (comp. above on this passage). With this defective knowledge of self, and partial self-righteousness, in which Job shows himself to be as yet entangled, is closely connected the gross harshness of the judgment concerning the friends, with which he requites their inconsiderate words against himself; characterizing them as windy phrase-mongers (Job 16:3), as unwise (Job 17:4; Job 17:10), as impudent mockers (Job 16:20; Job 17:2), as hard-hearted extortioners and distrainers (Job 17:5), yea, as belonging to the category of children of the world (Job 17:6), of the unrighteous and wicked (Job 16:10-11), of the profligate (Job 17:8). Closely connected with it in like manner is the harsh and extreme judgment in which he indulges of that which God does against him; the description which he gives of Him as a mighty warrior rushing upon him with inexorable, nay with bloodthirsty cruelty (Job 16:12-14), attributing to Him as the higher cause all the ignominy and injustice which he had suffered through the friends (Job 16:11 seq.; Job 17:6 seq.). And finally here belongs the gloomy hopelessness in respect to the issue of his life into which his spirit sinks down again, (Job 17:11-16) from the courage and confidence to which it had been raised in the last section but one. This despair is in palpable contradiction with the better confidence which like a flash of light had illuminated the darkness of his anguished soul, although it is in unison with the state of the sufferers heart in this stage of his education in the school of suffering, lacking as it does as yet the complete exactness and purity of moral self-knowledge, and as a consequence the real stability and joyfulness of faith in Gods power to save. So it is that the hope, which again emerges in his next discourse, that his innocence will be acknowledged in a better hereafter, is by no means held by him with a firm and decided grasp, but rather appears only as a transient flash across the prevailing darkness of his soul.

3. Job suffers as a righteous man, comparatively, and for that reason the complaints of his anguished heart in this discourse resemble even in manifold peculiarities of expression that which other righteous sufferers of the Old Testament say in the outgushings of their hearts, e. g., the Psalmist in Psalms 22. (comp. above on Job 16:10), Ps. 44. and 69. (comp. especially the words: I am made a byword to the world, Job 17:6, with Psa 44:15 [Psa 44:14], and Psa 69:12 [Psa 69:11]); also the servant of Jehovah in the second division of Isaiah; comp. Job 17:8, the righteous are astonished thereat, with Isa 52:14; also Job 16:16-17My face is burning red with weeping, etc., although no wrong cleaves to my hands, etc., with Isa 53:9although he hath done no violence, neither is any deceit found in his mouth:likewise Job 16:19Even now behold in heaven my witness, with Isa 50:8 seq. (He is near that justifieth me, who will condemn me? etc.). Notwithstanding these and the like correspondences with the lamentations and prayers of other righteous sufferers, Seinecke (Der Grundgedanke des B. Hiob, 1863, p. 34 seq.) goes too far when, on the ground of such correspondences in this and in other discourses of Job, he regards Job as being in general an allegorical figure of essentially the same significance with the servant of God in Isaiah, and hence as a poetic personification of the suffering people of Israel. Scarcely can it be definitely said that the poet by the relation to the passion-psalms stamped on the picture of the affliction of Job, has marked Job, whether consciously or unconsciously, as a typical person; that by taking up, and not unintentionally either, many national traits, he has made it natural to interpret Job as a Mashal of Israel (Delitzsch I. 313). There is too evident a lack of distinct intimations of such a purpose on the part of the poet to justify us in assuming anything more than the fact that the illustrious sufferer of Uz has a typical significance for many pious sufferers of later (post-patriarchal, and post-solomonic) times, and that consequently later poets, the authors of the Lamentation-Psalms, or prophets (such as Isaiah, possibly also Ezekiel and Zechariah) borrowed many particular traits from the picture of his suffering. Moreover, in view of the uncertainty touching such a relation of the matter, we can only warn against any homiletic application of this Messianic-allegorical conception of Job as being essentially identical with the servant of God. The exposition for practical edification of the section Job 16:18 to Job 17:9, with its rich yield of thought in biblical theology and the history of redemption, would gain little more by any attempts in this direction than the obscuration of the simple fact by useless and barren subtleties.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

Job 16:7 seq. Oecolampadius: He makes use of three motives most suitable for conciliating pity, to wit: the manifest severity of his sufferings (Job 16:7-14), repentance (??Job 16:15-16), and innocence (Job 16:17-21).

Job 16:10 seq. Brentius: There is this in Gods judgment that is most grievousthat He seems to favor our adversaries, and to stand on their side, by prospering their counsels and efforts against us. Nor is there any one who can endure this trial, unless thoroughly fortified by the word of God. Thus Christ Himself laments, saying: Dogs have compassed me; the assembly of the wicked enclosed me (Psalms 22.).Cramer: O soul, remember here thy Saviour, to whom also such things happened; for He suffered pain in body and soul, was persecuted by His enemies, and forsaken, afflicted, and tortured by God Himself.

Job 16:19 seq.: He intimates that Gods tribunal is above all tribunals; and when his mind and conscience, his faith and love toward God, cannot be recognised, appreciated or judged by any judge or witness, other than the Supreme, how can he do otherwise than appeal to Him? So the Apostle (1Co 4:3-4) repudiates every judgment but that of God (On Job 17:3.) Here he calls God, in whose power he is, his Surety; which is simply to ask that He would approve his appeal, and judge in accordance with it, so that if his adversary should carry the day, He would satisfy his claims. So we find elsewhere the pious, when wronged by an unrighteous judgment, appealing to the judgment of God, requesting Him to be their surety, as though they wished God to say to the adversary: This man is mine; enter thy suit, if any thing is due to thee, I will render satisfaction (Isa 38:14 : Psa 119:122).

Job 16:22. Brentius: Death is here called a path, by which we do not return. For take away the Word, or Christ, and death seems to be eternal annihilation; add the Word and Christ, and death will be the beginning of the resurrection.(On Job 17:11 seq.). This despair of Job is described for our instruction, that we may learn: first, that no one can endure the judgment of death without God the Father; next that we may know by clear testimony that God alone is good, but every man a liar.

Job 17:11 seq. Starke: We see here how unlike are Gods ways and thoughts, and those of men. Job had no other thought but that now it was all over with him, he would neither continue in life, nor again attain his former prosperity. And God had notwithstanding joined both these things together so wondrously and so gloriously, as the wished-for issue of Jobs sufferings sufficiently proves. Delitzsch: Job feels himself to be inevitably given up as a prey to death, and as from the depth of Hades into which he is sinking, he stretches out his hands to God, not that He would sustain him in life, but that He would acknowledge him before the world as His. If he is to die even, he desires only that he may not die the death of a criminal. When then the issue of the history is that God acknowledges Job as His servant, and after he is proved and refined by the temptation, preserves to him a doubly rich and prosperous life, Job receives beyond his prayer and comprehension; and after he has learned from his own experience that God brings to Hades and out again (1Sa 2:6; comp. on the other hand above, Job 7:9), he has forever conquered all fear of death, and the germs of the hope of a future life, which in the midst of his affliction, have broken through his consciousness, can joyously expand.

Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange

CONTENTS

Job continueth his discourse through this Chapter. He speaks of the grave as an asylum: still holding fast his integrity, he looks up to God with an hope, that the sufferings he was exercised with, would not afford an occasion of stumbling to the good, nor confidence to the bad; and points out his relationship with the worm and corruption.

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

(1) My breath is corrupt, my days are extinct, the graves are ready for me. (2) Are there not mockers with me? and doth not mine eye continue in their provocation? (3) Lay down now, put me in a surety with thee; who is he that will strike hands with me?

Was not Job a type of JESUS in the very great sufferings, with which he was exercised; and especially in those exercises when despised and afflicted of men? It should seem indeed, that with an eye to the LORD JESUS, the great enemy of souls was permitted to make his attack upon Job; because it is not only suitable that the Son of GOD, in his own person should triumph over the foe, but in his members also, JESUS as the surety of his people, first entered the field of battle with Satan, and conquered him; but all whom GOD did foreknow, are said to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the first born among many brethren. Rom 8:29 . Oh! what a blessedness in this point of view, is there in the afflictions of the righteous!

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Job 17:11

Happy is the man, no matter what his lot may be otherwise, who sees some tolerable realization of the design he has set before him in his youth or in his earlier manhood. Many there are who, through no fault of theirs, know nothing but mischance and defeat. Either sudden calamity overturns in tumbling ruins all they had painfully toiled to build, and success for ever afterwards is irrecoverable; or, what is most frequent, each day brings its own special hindrance, in the shape of ill-health, failure of power, or poverty, and a fatal net is woven over the limbs preventing all activity.

Mark Rutherford, The Deliverance, p. 142.

The Bed of Darkness

Job 17:13

These words said in a moment of profound depression by Job, and untrue for him, are yet terribly true for others.

I. Terribly true will these words be to him who has spent his life without making eternity his aim, whose days are past, and his purposes, all of this world, are broken off. How true also of one whose mind is occupied exclusively by business. We are given the taper of life, by which we are to prepare our future bed, by the light of which we are to make ready for the place of our repose. If we have employed our time otherwise, shall we find rest on that ill-made couch? I trow not, we have made our bed in the darkness.

II. We have here a work to do. God did not send us here to dawdle through life. Every day brings with it responsibilities. We are sent into the world to glorify God and save our own souls. It is work done, and not work to be done, that we shall look to with confidence, and which will deserve commendation of God. Look to what God has set thee to do see how much of it thou hast accomplished. Injuries forgiven, not to be forgiven; restitution made, not to be made; pardon asked, not to be asked; confession made, not to be made; responsibilities executed, not merely undertaken.

S. Baring-Gould, Sermon-Sketches, p. 201.

References. XVII. 14. J. M. Neale, Sermons Preached in Sackville College Chapel, vol. ii. p. 169. XVIII. 12. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxv. No. 1510. XIX. Ibid. No. 2909.

Fuente: Expositor’s Dictionary of Text by Robertson

Comforters and Flatterers

Job 17

In reading through the Book of Job up to this point, how often we forget what may be termed the mental effects of the discipline Job was undergoing. We think of Job as smitten down bodily, yea, as grievously afflicted in his flesh; we think of his losses of children and of property; we see him sitting in the dust, a desolate man; all this is in accord with the simple facts of the occasion: but have we not forgotten that some disaster may have been wrought in the man’s mind? Has all this satanic discipline befallen the man, and is his mind in equipoise, in tranquillity; able to look around the whole horizon of fact and purpose, and to consider it with undiminished and unbeclouded reason; does no kind of insanity accompany some temptations or trials? We shall find along that line of inquiry a large explanation of mysteries which perplex the imagination, and sometimes indeed aggravate and trouble the conscience. There is a psychological side to this discipline; Job’s soul was tormented as well as Job’s body afflicted. We think of the sore boils, of the grievous outbreakings of disease, of the rheum in the joints, of the gall shed upon the ground; all that is incidental, external. The real trouble is in the soul; his reason rises, as it were, from the throne, and says, I will now leave thee; and a man in that state is more to be pitied than the man who has gone farther into the mystery of mental unbalancing and spiritual loss. It is in the process towards unconsciousness, yea, towards madness, when we are partly man, partly beast, partly devil, with just one gleam of deity shot through the tumult, that we are most to be pitied. All proportions are altered all colours, all harmonies, all the parable of nature, all the apocalypse of the universe; everything is out of course, out of square, out of balance, and the things we once relied upon as if they were solid rock, feel as if they were giving way under our uncertain feet. One would suppose that the devil’s work in the world has simply been to limit the days of our life, to throw us into a kind of social disorder, and to set up a black ruler called affliction to tyrannise over the strength and the fortune of man. The case lies deeper: our reason is beclouded, the whole inner man sits now in twilight, now in darkness; we see men as trees walking, we take hold of things by the wrong end, we misquote familiar sayings, we invert all that has been established and ordained. Unless we enter into this mystery of satanic power and discipline, we shall be dealing with the exterior and never touching the spirit of things. The devil has got hold of our hearts. We know that he has broken our bones, and filled our blood with poison, and scattered premature snow upon our heads, and that he has taken cruelly to dig our graves in our very sight as if he might not have dug them in the dark, and said nothing to us until we went through the pathway of flowers into the last gloom. All that we know; but that is not enough to know: your thought is wrong that marvellous quantity within you which makes you a man, which lifts you by the measurement of a universe above the noblest fowl that ever spread its pinions in the sunlight: the soul has been twisted, perverted, depraved, sown thickly with black and pestilent ideas.

This is the explanation of all the intellectual tumult of the Book of Job up to this point. Even the comforters were as much under satanic temptation as Job was, in the broader sense; there was a keener accent for the moment in Job’s case than in theirs, but we must never think of Job as a man to be pitied by men who need no pity themselves. Job was a patriarch in more senses than one a great world-father and all his children are black with the same temptations and sad with the same distresses. Do not let us put away these old Bible men from us, as if they were figures upon a blackboard meant to illustrate something that occurred long centuries since. The Bible men are the men of all time. There are no other men. You will find yourself ull-drawn, coloured to the last hue, in God’s great book of portraiture.

Here, then, is Job with his ideas perverted, his hope covered over with midnight gloom, his whole soul upheaved and troubled with an unspeakable distress. He has lost the right conception of God. This is what occurred in Eden. Satan attacked the ideas of men. Satan did not afflict Adam or Eve with some poor curable bodily ailment: he whispered a question into the mind. Beware of question-asking. Who asked the first question in the Bible? The devil. We have seen that there is a question-asking which is reverent, which is part of the highest processes of education; but there is also a question-asking which doubles the mind down into the earth; troubles it with needless mysteries; throws across its adoration a dash of wonder which becomes presently a blot of scepticism. “Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” If you were to eat of this tree you would be gods yourselves. So Job is now asking curious questions, which he never asked in the days when the enemy was far away, and his prayer was a broad petition, as it were a whole morning’s dew exhaling under the call of the sun. But now the very proverbs he trusted to as revelations he misquotes, and misplaces, and misapplies; and all established truth, to the great horror of Bildad the Shuhite, the typical traditionalist, becomes a kind of blurred thing which belongs to nobody. This accounts for the state of the world, and the state of what is temporarily called the Church. Once the world stood in God, waited for God, loved God, felt a sense of void and of hollowness in the absence of God: but ever since what invention, what wondering, what misapprehension! The right construction of this need not be harsh. When men are now plunging, groping, rushing forth with apparently irreverent and impetuous audacity, why not say of them, They have lost their God, and they must find him ere the sun go down?

Let us follow out a little in detail the experience of Job in this matter. Having lost the right conception of God, he has been filled with a sense of self-repugnance: “My breath is corrupt, my days are extinct” ( Job 17:1 ); and then in another place he says, “When a few years are come, then I shall go the way whence I shall not return” ( Job 16:22 ). Throughout the whole of his speech he feels a sense of self-disgust A strange and beautiful thing is that in the development of the history of a soul. Man cannot be satisfied with himself; he says, There are lines of beauty, and lines of strength; there are qualities not to be denied; but oh, the monotony of myself! Why, it is so, as we have before said, with regard to nature. There is nothing more monotonous than sunshine. The sunlight would tire you long before the stars do. O weary, weary sunshine! we soon come to say, The grass is all burned up, and the flowers seem to be afraid, as if they had sinned and had been forsaken of the blessed Spirit; Oh send the clouds, the black rain-laden clouds, and let them come, and let us see rainbows, and hear the plash of liquid music, and observe the whole earth, as it were, rising in grateful appreciation of the long-needed visitation! So a man becomes intolerably monotonous to himself if he think about himself, and cannot complete himself by the idea of God; he sickens of himself; he says, This self-analysis must go no farther; I have nothing else to do; I am continually practising vivisection upon my own soul; I am tired of myself; my very breath is corrupt, my days are extinct; I am offensive to myself. That is the issue of human life without the right conception of God. We need God to give our manhood its right expression, to limit it by its proper boundaries, to set it in its right perspective, to give to it exceeding great and precious promises. Given a right conception of God, the great One, and greatest of all because he loves with ineffable affection, with infinite emotion, with tenderness that shrinks not from the agony of the cross, then we ourselves are but a little lower than God, we have companionship that fits our necessity, that appeases the prayer of every instinct, and gives us rest and hope. We need to withdraw from ourselves, in order to return to ourselves with all our faculties in full force, and all our aspirations sanctified and transformed into prayers. Man cannot live always under a roof of wood however polished, or fresco however handled. Man was made to live under the sky. The roof affords a momentary hospitality, which is precious; but taking the years in fives and tens and twenties, carrying on human age to fifty, and farther on still, man says, Is there nothing higher than this poor roof, which seems to be coming nearer and nearer to me, threatening to crush me? Is there no firmament, no wide open sky? He feels like a young bird, moved by an inexplicable fluttering, which, being interpreted and magnified into its fullest meaning, signifies flying without wings and without fear. You know by your experience that when you have lost the right conception of God your life goes down into a sense of self-corruptness and self-loathing, which is made up for in some degree by the fool’s policy of excitement, amusement, dress, vanity, of every figure and every change: but the dead self is still rotting, and presently the pestilence will make the air intolerable. Be wise in time. Seek thy God, O man, and in him alone wilt thou find true manhood, joy unstained as morning dew and beautiful as morning light.

Then Job, having lost the right conception of God, finds himself in utter loss and misery:

“He hath made me also a byword… mine eye also is dim by reason of sorrow, and all my members are as a shadow” ( Job 17:6-7 ).

Who cannot sign this with his own name, saying, That is my experience; the letters may have been changed a little, but the spirit and the substance represent an actual fact in the spiritual life? Then we have again Invention. Man will invent something; he will build some altar to a forbidden god; he will invent a superstition; he will create a new arrangement and adjustment of social relations and responsibilities; he will try to cure himself, only to end the trial in the conviction that self-cure is impossible. Observe, self-cure has been attempted. It does not lie amongst the untried suggestions of human thought and human history. From the beginning, when fig-leaf was attached to fig-leaf, man has been trying to hide his sin, to cover his transgression, to conceal his shame; having fallen out of heaven, he has been building a kind of staircase back again to the sky; and, lo, in the very midst of his venture, the whole edifice has collapsed, and he has returned to the dust. This is the deep conviction of Christian faith and Christian experience, and this is the reason of Christian activity. We do not build churches for the purpose of beautifying landscapes; we do not put on church-roofs for the birds to build in; we build the sanctuary because our souls need it not always in the same degree of consciousness. Sometimes we are hardly aware that we have souls; it would seem as if now and again we passed into the kind of unconsciousness which is mistaken for satisfaction; we are merry, we can sing and play and dance, we admire the beauties of nature, and say, with a sigh that has no deeper meaning than the words it utters, the world is very beautiful, call it a vale of tears who may. When a man is full of strength, when fortune goes well with him, then he needs, to his own immediate consciousness, no great sky of thought and hope, no God judging one day and redeeming another, and conducting all the mysterious process of human education: the man thinks he has attained the summit of human desire. But the day has changed; the year is not all June; the east wind blows, the frost seals up the fountains, the winter dismisses the labourer from the field, and darkness suddenly blots out the day, and death comes after affliction has fought a great fight against human strength then grim, ghastly, pitiless, all-devouring death comes; then they who were so glad in June, when they thought themselves part of the great: system of bird and flower and light, begin to inquire for comfort, for Christian inspiration, for the strength which looks death in the face and bewilders the power of the tyrant. We must take an all-round life as the circuit of our judgment, if we would deal gravely and justly with this solemn subject.

Job found himself surrounded by flatterers.

“He that speaketh flattery to his friends, even the eyes of his children shall fail” ( Job 17:5 ).

This is the position of affairs today: we are surrounded by comforters, that is to say, by men who do not understand us, and whose words have no relation to our experience. Hence oftentimes the empty church. The world knows that what the man of “words” is talking about has no relation to the killing pain, the intolerable sorrow, the unutterable agony of life. So the fool often beats the preacher herein, that he can at least often excite, or intoxicate, and create a momentary illusion apt to be mistaken for a permanent satisfaction. And we are surrounded by flatterers, men who tell us that after all we are not so bad. Look at your conduct: you pay your way, you keep your word, you are faithful to your marriage, you are known in the neighbourhood as an upright citizen why, where will they match you? And the heart all the time says, Such talk is flattery, such talk is falsehood. I know all they say, but it was done by the hand; it is a trick of mine. I keep my clock right by putting the hands backwards and forwards just as the general time requires, and they think the clock keeps its own time; all my morality is etymological, and really a manner, an attitude; I pay my bills punctually because I have an object, which I will not disclose: but they are telling lies all the time, they are not touching my soul with any comfort; in my soul I despise their flattery, and I blow out the candles of hope which they would set in the window of my soul. Do not believe the flatterers. They will tell you that if you attend to sanitary discipline, to all personal rule and self-subjection, if you store your intellect, if you cultivate your taste, you will pass through the world honourably. Let your soul speak; ask it at midnight what it thinks of all the flare and garish ness held before it in the vulgar day. Let your conscience speak; speak to yourself. Do not make a noise in the ear, that is not talking to yourself but hold your soul to an exercise of spiritual attention, and the soul will tell you that everything that addresses itself to fancy, to manner, to custom, to bondage, is a lying deity, a false angel, a worthless gospel.

Observe how, without the right conception of God, all proverbs and maxims as quoted so fluently by the man of yellow hair from the land of pleasantness, Zophar and Naamathite, are turned upside down: they are quoted, but the old music does not come back with them:

“The righteous also shall hold on his way, and he that hath clean hands shall be stronger and stronger” ( Job 17:9 ).

The words are quoted as if they ought to be true, as if once they had been known to be true: but now that I repeat them, Job might have said, They seem to mock me, because whilst the words are being uttered by my lips they are being contradicted by the facts which I embody. I am righteous, I have clean hands, I cannot hold on my way, I cannot get stronger and stronger; I am getting weaker and weaker: the proverb ought to have been right; it must have come down from heaven, this is not a flower grown in our gardens, it was a flower from heaven; but I am contradicting it, I, the most reputable righteous man of my time, am lying here self-disgusted: my breath is corrupt, my whole flesh is a burden of fire, and as for my hope, it is put out, like a candle by a cross-blowing wind. Thus we cannot get comfort from the old maxims and commonplaces of history. Even the old wine of truth does not taste as it once did. An enemy hath done this; let him be named, described, set forth in every frightsome detail, that men may know him, and resist him when he would approach.

Then all life bears downwards:

“My days are past, my purposes are broken off, even the thoughts of my heart. They change the night into day: the light is short because of darkness. If I wait, the grave is mine house: I have made my bed in the darkness. I have said to corruption, Thou art my father: to the worm, Thou art my mother, and my sister” ( Job 17:11-15 ).

This is the course of human nature without the divine sanctification and guidance. Do not quote appearances as against the philosophy. What can be more deceptive than appearances? “Things are not what they seem.” Do not say that the world is well dressed. We know it. But a corpse may be shrouded in silver-cloth. We are not asking about fortune, property, display, appearances. We know a cripple by his lurch, whatever purple may be upon his shoulders. Byron, the poet of fire, the seer of perdition, knew he was lame, though he was a lord. You cannot cover up the evil, in the sense of extinguishing it. For a time it subsides; then it heaves. Oh, that initial heave! under whose influence the soul says, It is all coming back again. It is like poor Mary Lamb’s intermittent insanity. She would say to her brother, almost in tenderness an apostle of Christ, I feel it coming on again! She would have her little arrangements made whilst she could make them, because tomorrow the great darkness might settle upon her mind, and she would have to be led away to an appropriate place. The feeling of its coming on! So it is with conscience, with the presence of evil in the soul: a passion is lighted, an instinct is awakened, an old appetite begins to feel a burning thirst; the soul says O my God. it is coming on again! corruption, thou art my father: worm, thou art my mother and my sister! This is part of human experience, and sometimes an appointed part; because it may be that God has withdrawn himself that we might feel our need of him. He has taken a time for withdrawment, but he himself has measured it; his sweet words are “For a moment I have forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee.” Thus he blots out our moments of darkness; thus he extinguishes our sensations of sin; “where sin abounds, grace doth much more abound.” God pours the Atlantic of his blessing or grace over the black pebble of our iniquity: it is lost; it is at the bottom of the sea.

Then Job looks round and says, “And where is now my hope? as for my hope, who shall see it?” (Job 17:15 .) Thus he talks with a strange incoherence; thus he is true to the working of an intermittent insanity. Even the bad man looks round sometimes for his hope. Even the atheist tries to pray; he may have his own form of words, and may disdain all Christian formulas of worship, but the soul, label it atheist or theist, must sometimes say to all other powers within. Let us pray. What, then, is needed amid all this riot and tumult, this darkness, this storm of night? What is needed? The gospel is needed; the glorious gospel of the blessed God; the speech of blood. What is needed? A man is needed, beautiful as God, complete as the Father, holy as the eternal deity. A Lamb without spot and without blemish is needed. Bethlehem, Nazareth, Golgotha, are all needed. Son of God, we need thee! Blessed Jesus, Son of Mary, Son of man, Son of God, Immanuel, Wonderful, Counseller, everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, names that seem to contradict one another we need thee. Even so, Lord Jesus, come quickly.

Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker

(See the Job Book Comments for Introductory content and general conclusions and observations).

VI

THE SECOND ROUND OF SPEECHES

Job 15-21.

In this chapter we take up the second round of speeches, commencing with the second speech of Eliphaz. This speech consists of two parts, a rejoinder to Job’s last speech and a continuation of the argument.

The main points of the rejoinder (Job 15:1-16 ) are as follows:

1. A reflection on Job’s wisdom (Job 15:1-3 ). A wise man would not answer with vain knowledge, windy words, nor reason with unprofitable words.

2. An accusation of impiety (Job 15:4-6 ). Job is irreverent, binders devotion, uses a serpent tongue of craftiness whose words are self-condemnatory. (Cf. what Caiaphas said about Christ, Mat 26:65 .)

3. A cutting sarcasm (Job 15:7-8 ). Wast thou before Adam, or before the creation of the mountains, and a member of the Celestial Council considering the creation, that thou limitest wisdom to thyself?

4. An invidious comparison (Job 15:9-10 ). What knowest thou of which we are ignorant? With us are the gray-headed, much older than thy father.

5. A bigoted rebuke (Job 15:11-16 ). You count small the consolation of God we offered you in gentle words [the reader may determine for himself how much “comfort” they offered Job and note their conceit in calling this “God’s comfort,” and judge whether it was offered in “gentle” words]. Your passions run away with you. Here a quotation from Rosenmuller is in point: Quo te tuus animus rapit? “Whither does thy soul hurry thee?” Quid oculi qui tui vibrantes? “What means thy rolling eyes?” It turns against God; this is presumptuous: A man born of woman, depraved, against God in whose sight angels are imperfect and the heavens unclean. How much more an abominable, filthy man drinking iniquity like water.

The points in the continuation of the argument are as follows:

1. Hear me while I instruct thee (Job 15:17 ). I will tell you what I have seen.

2. It is the wisdom of the ancients handed down (Job 15:18-19 ). Wise men have received it from their fathers and have handed it down to us for our special good.

3. Concerning the doom of the wicked (Job 15:20-30 ). This is a wonderful description of the course of the wicked to their final destruction, but his statements, in many instances, are not true. For instance, in his first statement about the wicked (Job 15:20 ), he says, “The wicked man travaileth with pain all his days,” which is in accord with his theory, but does not harmonize with the facts in the case. The wicked does not travail with pain “all his days.” They are not terrified “all the time” as Eliphaz here pictures them. In this passage Eliphaz intimates that Job may be guilty of pride (Job 15:25 ) and of fatness (Job 15:27 ).

4. The application (Job 15:31-35 ). If what he said about the wicked was true, his application here to Job is wrong. It will be seen that Eliphaz here intimates that Job was guilty of vanity and self-deception; that he was, perhaps, guilty of bribery and deceit, and therefore the calamity had come upon him.

The following is a summary of Job’s reply (Job 16-17) :

1. Your speech is commonplace. I have heard many such things. Ye are miserable comforters (Job 16:2 ).

2. You persist when I have urged you to desist. It is unprovoked. Your words are vain, just words of wind (Job 16:3 ).

3. If our places were changed, I could do as you do, but I would not. I would helo and comfort you (Job 16:4-5 ).

4. You ask me to cease my complaint, but whether I speak or forbear, the result is the same. I have not ensnared my feet, but God has lassoed me (Job 16:6 ).

5. He gives a fearful description of God’s assault (Job 16:7-14 ): (1) as a hunter with hounds he has harried me; (2) he has abandoned me to the malice of mine enemies; (3) as a wrestler he has taken me by the neck and shaken me to pieces; (4) as an archer he has bound me to the stake and terrified and pierced me with his arrows; (5) as a mighty conqueror he opened breach after breach in my defenses with batteringrams; and (6) as a giant he rushes on me through the breach in the assault.

6. As a result, I am clothed in sackcloth and my dignity lies prone in the dust; my face is foul with weeping, my eyelids shadowed by approaching death, although no injustice on my part provoked it and my prayer was pure (Job 16:15-17 ).

7. I appeal to the earth to cover my blood and to the heavenly witness to vouch for me. Friends may scorn my tears, but they are unto God. (See passages in Revelation and Psalms.) Note here the messianic prayer, “that one might plead for a man with God, as a son of man pleadeth for his neighbor.” But my days are numbered and mockers are about me (Job 16:18-17:2 ).

8. The plea for a divine surety (messianic) but God has made me a byword, who had been a tabret. Future ages will be astonished at my case and my deplorable condition (Job 17:3-16 ).

There are several things in this speech worthy of note, viz: 1. The messianic desire which finds expression later as David and Isaiah adopt the words of Job to fit their Messiah. 2. Job is right in recognizing a malicious adversary, but wrong in thinking God his adversary; God only permitted these things to come to Job, but Satan brought them.

There are two parts of Bildad’s second speech (Job 18 ), viz: a rejoinder (Job 18:1-4 ) and an argument (Job 18:5-21 ). The main points of his rejoinder are:

1. Job hunts for words rather than speaks considerately.

2. Why are the friends accounted as beasts and unclean in your sight?

3. Job was just tearing himself with anger and altogether without reason.

4. A sarcasm: The earth will not be forsaken for thee nor will the rock be moved out of its place for thee (Job 18:1-4 ).

The argument (Job 18:5-21 ) is fine and much of it is true, but it is wrong in its application. The following are the points as applied to the wicked:

1. His light shall be put out.

2. The steps of his strength shall be straightened.

3. His own counsel shall be cast down.

4. There shall be snares everywhere for his feet.

5. Terrors of conscience shall smite him on every side.

6. He shall be destroyed root and branch and in memory.

There are also two parts to Job’s great reply: His expostulation with his friends (Job 19:1-6 ) and his complaint against God (Job 19:7-29 ). The points of his expostulation are:

1. Ye reproach me often without shame and deal hardly with me.

2. If I have sinned, it is not against you but my error remains with myself.

3. The snares you refer to are not because of my fault but they are from God, for he has subverted me and compassed me with his net.

The items of his complaint against God are as follows:

1. He will not hear me, though I am innocent; surely there is no justice.

2. He has walled me up and set darkness in my path.

3. He has stripped me of my glory and he has broken me down on every side.

4. He has plucked up my hope like a tree and his fiery wrath is against me.

5. He has counted me an adversary and I am besieged by armies round about.

6. He has put away from me my brethren, friends, kindred, family, servants, and I am escaped with the skin of my teeth.

7. I appeal to you, O ye my friends, for pity instead of persecution.

8. Oh that my words were written in a book or were engraved with a pen of iron in the rock forever, but I know that my redeemer liveth and will at last stand upon the earth, and I shall behold him in my risen body, then to be vindicated by him.

9. Now I warn you to beware of injustice to me lest the sword come upon you, for there is a judgment ahead. Here it may be noted that Job 19:23-24 refer to the ancient method of writing and that Job expresses in Job 19:25-27 a great hope for the future. Compare the several English translations of Job 19:26 with each other and the context and then answer:

1. Does Job intend to convey the idea that he will see God apart from his body) i.e., when death separates soul and body?

2. Or does he mean that at the resurrection he will see God from the viewpoint of his risen body?

3. If you hold the latter meaning, which version, after all, is the least misleading, the King James, the Revised, the American Standard Version, or Leeser’s Jewish translation? The answer is, Job here means that he will see God from the viewpoint of his risen body, as the King James Version conveys.

Zophar’s second speech is harsher than his first, and consists of a rejoinder (Job 20:1-3 ) and an argument (Job 20:4-29 ).

The points of his rejoinder are:

1. Haste is justified because of his thoughts;

2. The reproach of Job 19:28-29 , “If ye say, How may we pursue him and that the cause of the suffering is in me, then beware of the sword. My goel [redeemer] will defend me,” he answers thus: “Thus do my thoughts answer me and by reason of this there is haste in me; I hear the reproof that puts me to shame and the spirit of my understanding gives answer.

The points of his argument are:

1. Since creation the prosperity of the wicked has been short, his calamity sure and utter, extending to his children.

2. The very sweetness of his sin becomes poison to him.

3. He shall not look on streams flowing with milk, butter, and honey.

4. He shall restore and shall not swallow it down, even according to all that he has taken.

5. In the height of his enjoyment the sword smites him and the arrow pierces him,

6. Darkness wraps him, terrors fright him, and heaven’s supernatural fires burn him.

7. Heaven reveals his iniquity and earth rises up against him. This is the heritage appointed unto him by God. Certain other scriptures carry out the idea of milk, butter, and honey, viz: Exo 3:8 ; Exo 13:5 ; Exo 33:3 ; 2Ki 18:32 ; Deu 31:20 ; Isa 7:22 ; Joe 3:18 , and several classic authors refer to them, also, as Pindar, Virgil, Ovid, and Horace. It will be noted that Zophar intimates that Job might be guilty of hypocrisy (Job 19:12 ), of oppressing the poor (Job 19:19 ) and of greediness (Job 19:20 ).

Job’s reply (Job 21 ) is more collected than the former, and the points are as follows:

1. Hear me and then mock. This is only fair and may afterward prove a consolation to you.

2. Do I address myself to man for help? My address is to God and, because I am unheard, therefore I am impatient?

3. Mark me and be astonished. What I say even terrifies me.

4. The prosperity of the wicked who defy God is a well known fact.

5. How seldom is their light put out. They are not destroyed as you say.

6. Ye say God visits it on his children. What is that to him?

7. Here are two cases, one prosperous to the end and the other never so. The grave is sweet to both.

8. God’s reserved judgment is for the wicked. Do you not know this?

9. In conclusion I must say that your answers are falsehoods.

In this second round of speeches we have observed that Job has quieted down to a great extent and seems to have risen to higher heights of faith, while the three friends have become bolder and more desperate. They have gone beyond insinuations to intimations, thus suggesting certain sins of which Job might be guilty. While Job has greatly improved in his spirit and has ascended a long way from the depths to which he had gone in the moral tragedy, the climax of the debate has not yet been reached. Tanner says, “While the conflict of debate is sharper, Job’s temper is more calm; and he is perceptibly nearer a right attitude toward God. He is approaching a victory over his opponents, and completing the more important one over himself.”

QUESTIONS

1. Of what does the second speech of Eliphaz consist?

2. What the main points of the rejoinder (Job 15:1-16 )?

3. What the points in the continuation of the argument?

4. What summary of Job’s reply Job 16:16-17 )?

5. What things in this speech are worthy of note?

6. What the two parts of Bildad’s second speech Job 18:18 )?

7. What the main points of his rejoinder?

8. What can you say of his argument and what the points of it?

9. What the two parts to Job’s great reply?

10. What the points of his expostulation?

11. What the items of his complaint against God?

12. Explain Job 19:23-24 ,

13. What great hope does Job express in Job 19:25-27 ?

14. Compare the several English translations of Job 19:26 with each other and the context and then answer: What great hope does Job express in Job 19:25-27 ?

15. How does Zophar’s second speech compare with the first and what the parts of this speech?

16. What the points of his rejoinder?

17. What the points of his argument?

18. What scriptures carry out the idea of milk, butter, and honey, and what classic authors refer to this?

19. What can you say of Job’s reply (Job 21 ) and what his points?

20. What have we found in the second round of speeches?

Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible

Job 17:1 My breath is corrupt, my days are extinct, the graves [are ready] for me.

Ver. 1. My breath is corrupt ] Which argueth that my inwards are imposthumated and rotten, so that I cannot in likelihood have long to live; Oh therefore that I might have a day of hearing and clearing before I die! But Job should have remembered that there will be at the last day a resurrection of names as well as of bodies; which he that believeth maketh not haste. Howsoever, it was not amiss for Job, so grievously diseased, and now well in years, to have thought himself to be dying and to discourse about these three particulars, that speak of him as a dying man. In the old the palm tree is full of blooms, the map of age is figured on his forehead, the calendars of death appear in the furrows of his face, the mourners are ready to go about the streets, and he is going to his long home, according to that elegant description, Ecc 12:1-7 He should therefore say with Varro, Annus octogesimus me admonet, ut farcinas colligam, &c., It is high time for me to pack up, and to be gone out of this life; or rather, as Simeon, Lord, now let thou thy servant depart in peace, &c.

My days are extinct ] As a candle, Pro 13:9 . Or cut off, as a web, so some read it. The original word is found only here.

The graves are ready for me ] Heb. The graves for me; q.d. I bid adieu to all things else, and as the grave gapes for me, so do I gape for the grave, E . I would it were even so, as Basil said, when Valens, the Arian emperor, threatened him with death. But why doth Job speak of graves in the plural? Surely, to show that he was besieged with many deaths; or else, because the dead are buried (as it were) first in their grave clothes, and then in the coffin, and then in the bier or hearse, and lastly in the sepulchre, which every place did, as it were, proffer to Job, and threaten him with death, in regard to his many pains and pressures, by the scoffs and taunts of his friends. For,

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Job Chapter 17

In the 17th chapter Job carries on, and goes back to his dreadful condition. It was not yet a settled thing; it was merely a gleam. “My breath is corrupt, my days are extinct, the graves are ready for me. Are there not mockers with me?” – surely there were three of them – “and doth not mine eye continue in their provocation?” If that was the case with these three men who had been his friends, what was the feeling of all the people round about that knew? You may depend upon it it would be quite as bad as that of the three friends, or worse. We must not suppose it is limited to them. It is the natural conclusion of the natural mind, working upon this thought, that God’s moral government is exact now, instead of knowing that God on the contrary, is waiting for His direct government, when Christ, who alone is capable of holding the reins and of governing, shall rule. Therefore, even when the church was formed, the church was perfectly incapable of judging the world; and of this Popery is a clear instance. There they have tried to govern the world, and what are they? Why, the most abominable thing in the eye of God on the earth. There is nothing more wicked than Popery. You may tell me about all the horrors of heathenism and Buddhism. Yes, but they do not mix up Christ, or Peter, or Paul, and all the rest. The Papists know enough of Christianity to make them verily guilty. It is a great deal more wicked idolatry to worship the Virgin Mary than to worship Juno or Venus; because the one was pure ignorance under the darkness of the devil, and the other is worshipping Mary after Christ came – after the true light shone. There is nothing more guilty than what people call Christian Idolatry. Worshipping the Mass – what is that? That is not confined to Papists now; now it is unblushingly done – I will not say by Protestants, but by people who masquerade as clergymen. Surely that is not too severe an expression for it? – and at the same time they are perfectly in the error of Popery, only they do not yet own the Pope; but they have all the falsehood of it in their souls.

Well, Job bemoans his condition in a very solemn manner, and compares what he once was. “Aforetime I was as a tabret,” i.e., “I sounded music, as it were, in the ears of people as I had to do with them.” But now a by-word not merely of the three friends, but “of the people!” “Mine eye also is dim by reason of sorrow, and all my members are as a shadow. Upright men shall be astonied at this, and the innocent shall stir up himself against the hypocrite. The righteous also” – you see it is turned for good – “shall hold on his way.” That is where he looked onward to. His record was on high; his witness was in heaven; he clung to God. “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.” That was Job’s language; that was his spirit. He had far more faith than any one of the three.

Fuente: William Kelly Major Works (New Testament)

breath = spirit. Hebrew. ruach. App-9.

is = has become.

corrupt = consumed.

extinct. Hebrew. Za’ak. Occurs only here.

the graves. The Septuagint reads as in translation below.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

Chapter 17

My breath is corrupt, my days are extinct, the grave is ready for me. Are there not mockers with me? and doth not my eye continue in their provocation? Lay down now, put me in a surety with thee; who is he that will strike hands with me? ( Job 17:1-3 )

Who will be my friend?

For you have hid your heart from understanding: therefore thou shalt not exalt them. He that speaketh flattery to his friends, even the eyes of his children shall fail. He hath made me also a byword of the people; and aforetime I was as a tabret ( Job 17:4-6 ).

Before, I was actually a song to them. Now I’m a curse.

My eye also is dim by reason of sorrow, and all my members are as a shadow. Upright men shall be astonished at this, and the innocent shall stir up himself against the hypocrite. The righteous also shall hold on his way, and he that hath clean hands shall be stronger and stronger. But as for you all, do ye return, and come now: for I cannot find one wise man among you. My days are past, my purposes are broken off, even the thoughts of my heart. They change the night into day: the light is short because of darkness. If I wait, the grave is my house: I have made my bed in the darkness. I have said to corruption, You are my father: to the worm, You are my mother, and my sister. And where is now my hope? as for my hope, who shall see it? They shall go down to the bars of the pit, when our rest together is in the dust ( Job 17:7-16 ).

I mean, this is really a dirge of the lowest you can imagine. “I’ve had it. You know, I’m just waiting for the grave. It’s my house. I’ve made my bed in darkness. I’ve said to the corruption, ‘Hey, corruption, you’re my dad.’ To the worms, ‘You’re my mother, eat me up.’ You know, waiting for the maggots to come along and just destroy me, and then I’ll be at rest.” “

Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary

Job 17:1-2

Introduction

Job 17:1-2

THE CONCLUSION OF JOB’S FIFTH DISCOURSE

DeHoff’s excellent summary of this chapter is: “Job’s discourse here is broken, and he passes suddenly from one thing to another, as is usual with men in trouble. He pictures himself as a despised man, a man of sorrows, full of misery, abandoned by his friends, and crying to God for mercy.” Rowley noted that the triple formation in verse 1 indicates that, “Job was speaking in great emotional strain.”

Job 17:1-2

JOB REFERS TO HIS FRIENDS AS MOCKERS

“My Spirit is consumed, My days are extinct,

The grave is ready for me.

Surely there are mockers with me,

And mine eye dwelleth upon their provocation.”

We like Van Selms’ paraphrase of Job 17:1 : “I spoke of years just now, but I am all but dead now. I have no spirit left; I cannot do anything.”

“Surely there are mockers with me” (Job 17:2). “Job charged his friends with mockery, the penalty of which (Deu 19:15-21) prescribed that the false accuser would receive the punishment assigned to the crime wrongly alleged.” It was perhaps to this that Job alluded in Job 17:5.

“Their provocation” (Job 17:2). This verse is obscure in meaning, as indicated by various renditions: “Mine eye is weary of their contentiousness,” or “Mine eyes are wearied by your stream of peevish complaints.”

E.M. Zerr:

Job 17:1-2. Job was not only ready for the grave apparently, but his days were being made more bitter by the provocation of mockers. Because of such a sorrowful condition he turned his attention to God.

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

Job was in the midst of difficulties. About him were mockers, none of whom understood him. He was become “a byword of the people.” There was no “wise man.” And yet he struggled through the unutterable darkness toward God’s vindication. If that is not to come here, then let it come somewhere.

In all the movement of this great answer it would seem as though outlines of the truth were breaking upon Job. He was conscious of the action of God in his sorrows, of an adversary who followed him relentlessly and seemed to tear him pitilessly, even as a wild beast. Somehow, this adversary was connected with the action of God, and yet in the deepest of him Job knew that God was his Witness. His present trouble was that God did not appear for him. He had cried out, but the answer had not come. If he had a hope it was not evident, it could not be seen. He would go down to the dust.

And yet he seems to have got back to his original thought about death. It was rest. There was no clear shining of light, but one can well imagine how in the after-days he would come to recognize that these strivings of the soul and these passionate desires for divine defense were gleams even in the darkness.

Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible

The Bars of Sheol

Job 17:1-16

Jobs continued complaint of his friends, Job 17:1-9

He avows that he could bear his awful calamities if only he were delivered from their mockery; and asks that God would arbitrate between him and them. God is the supreme Judge, and Job asks Him to become his surety against the recriminations of those who so shamefully misjudged him. There is no other course for hunted souls than appeal from man to God in the person of Jesus. At the close of this paragraph he insists that amid a whirlwind of trouble the righteous must hold on his way and keep his hands clean. If any should read these words whose path has dipped down into the valley of the shadow, let them hold on their way. Go on doing the will of God, so far as you know it, and it will bring you out under His heaven of love.

Jobs gloomy anticipations of the future, Job 17:10-16

For him there was a grave of darkness and gloom. Men had not as yet been begotten again unto a living hope by the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. The soul must descend to the bars of Sheol, Job 17:16, r.v. What a contrast to our Christian hope! There is no need for us to claim the pit for father and the worm for sister! In the Fathers house are many mansions. The sufferings of the present are not worthy to be compared with the glory to be revealed! Our kin are not in the dust. We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses.

Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary

Job 17:9

These words assure us of two things which our minds need-a security of our continuance and of our growth.

I. Who are the righteous? (1) A righteous man is a true man; (2) a righteous man is upright in his daily life and conversation; (3) a righteous man understands, and recognises, and puts on another righteousness-the righteousness of Christ; (4) a righteous man is therefore a justified man, a man pleasing and dear to God for the sake of Jesus Christ.

II. “The righteous shall hold on his way.” Can we read these words and deny the perseverance of saints? An unseen hand will be over you, attractions too strong to be resisted will draw you, a spirit not your own will animate you, and you will hold on your way.

III. “He that hath clean hands.” To have clean hands means two things: (1) it is to be washed in the fountain that cleanseth from all sin; (2) to have clean hands is the Scriptural expression for a man who is living without any one known, wilful, deliberate sin.

IV. The forgiven man who lives purely “shall be stronger and stronger.” (1) His conceptions of truth will grow continually firmer; (2) his faith in that truth will strengthen; (3) his power over his besetting sin will be greater; (4) his ability for service will grow; (5) his happy sense of God’s love and favour will increase.

J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 4th series, p. 125.

Job 17:9; Job 42:5-6

I. It is not possible to set out the salient features of Job’s strength without taking into account the immense energy he derived from his burning consciousness of unimpeachable integrity. Integrity is power. Sincerity is a high form of human energy. Righteousness as a passion of the heart and an element in character and life is a manifest and undeniable source of imperial force. The strongest of beings is the holiest, and we men reach the very spring-head of power as we become partakers of the Divine purity.

II. But, strange to tell, the closing picture of Job is not that of a conqueror, but a confessor, not of an enthroned prince, but of a kneeling penitent. The unexpected revolution is effected by the revelation of God to the eye of the soul. Job knows God as he did not know Him before. The character of his knowledge is changed, heightened, vitalised, intensified, personalised. God is no longer a voice crying in the wilderness, but a Presence in his heart and before his spiritual eye.

III. Here then is one signal value of the knowledge of God, even of His immense power and greatness. By the knowledge of God is the knowledge of self, in the knowledge of self is the knowledge of sin, through the knowledge of personal sin we come to repentance, and by a baptism in the fiery waters of repentance we pass to the reality and strength of life.

IV. Such God-inspired penitence swiftly vindicates itself in the pure sincerity and holy brotherhood it creates and the reconciliation it effects between man and men and man and his lot. The voice of prayer is exchanged for the clash of debate; the incense of reconciling sacrifice ascends in place of the smoke of anger and scorn.

J. Clifford, Daily Strength for Daily Living, p. 325.

References: Job 17:9.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xiii., No. 749, and vol. xxiii., No. 1361; J. H. Evans, Thursday Penny Pulpit, vol. iii., p. 435; J. A. Picton, Christian World Pulpit, vol. i., p. 211. Job 17:11.-Old Testament Outlines, p. 94. Job 17:13.-S. Baring-Gould, One Hundred Sermon Sketches, p. 201. Job 17:14.-J. M. Neale, Sermons in Sackville College, vol. ii., p. 169. Job 17-D. Moore, Penny Pulpit, No. 3171.

Fuente: The Sermon Bible

breath is corrupt: or, spirit is spent, Job 19:17

my days: Job 6:11, Job 42:16, Isa 57:16

the graves: Job 17:13, Job 17:14, Psa 88:3-5, Isa 38:10-14

Reciprocal: Job 33:22 – his soul Psa 88:4 – counted Psa 88:15 – afflicted Psa 146:4 – His breath Isa 38:12 – he will cut

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Job 17:1. My breath is corrupt Is offensive to those around me, through my disease. But, as the word , chubbalah, here rendered corrupt, may signify bound, straitened, or distressed with pain, as a woman in travail, Chappelow thinks the phrase had better be rendered: Spiritus meus constringitur, vel, cum dolore emititur; that is, I have such an oppression, that I can hardly breathe. The reading of the margin, however, is not to be overlooked, My spirit is spent, or lost, that is, my vital spirits and animal powers are wasted; my soul is ready to leave the body: I am a gone man. My days are extinct The lamp of my life is far spent, and upon the point of going out. The graves are ready for me That is, the grave; the plural number being put for the singular. Or, he speaks of the sepulchres of his fathers, to which he was to be gathered. Sol. Jarchis comment is, I am ready for the grave. The text is only , kebarim li, sepulchra mihi: The grave for me, or, I have the grave. Any addition seems to spoil that elegancy of expression which consists in a sudden, quick turn of thought; as if Job had said, My breath is gone; my days extinct; I have a grave. Thus the Vulgate, Solum mihi superest sepulchrum, The grave only remains for me. Wherever we go there is but a step between us and the grave. The sepulchres where our fathers are laid are ready for us also. Whatever is unready, the grave is ready. It is a bed soon made. And, if the grave be ready for us, it concerns us to be ready for the grave.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Job 17:1. My breath is corrupt. Schultens reads, corruptus est spiritus meus: My spirit is corrupt, my days are extinct, the sepulchre is my repose. Why then make a jest of me, while my eye weeps all night at the severity of their reproaches? The French versions nearly coincide with these readings. Mercer, a celebrated German critic, has this gloss on Job 17:1. The vital power is exhausted and consumed.

Job 17:7. All my members are as a shadow. Job here, from the emaciated state of his frame, makes a transition to the pressure of his mind, to the cloud of darkness which overspread all the faculties of his soul.

Job 17:14. I have said to corruption, thou art my father. Schmidius describes corruption as the heritage we have derived from our father, and the worm as our sister, having the earth for our common mother.

Job 17:15. Where is now my hope? Much beclouded, obscured with darkness, depressed with complicated afflictions; yet it is a hope. On the contrary the wicked, going down to the bars of the pit, are destitute of hope, and assailed with every fear.

REFLECTIONS.

This speech of Job should be read at once, though here divided. He cautions parents against unguarded conduct, either in words or actions, before their children. Family faults are blots in the recollection of our tender offspring for a future age. The infamy of a father casts a damp on the spirit of his children; they are depressed by his conduct.

The visitations of God on the wicked shall encourage the righteous to hold on his way, and grow stronger in faith and piety. We may be shook for a moment, on beholding the prosperity of the wicked; but on seeing their end, we spring the more into the arms of God, and say, Thou shalt guide me by thy counsel, and afterwards receive me to glory. We have a God, we have a covenant full of promises, we have earnests and foretastes of heaven, that we may progress in religion and grow in grace. This will support us when we fall under a mortal sickness, either by the slow decay, or the more sudden dissolutions of nature. We shall regard the grave, of which the world has so much horror, as the bosom of a parent, and a hidingplace from the ills of life. The soul of the well-tried saint, taking hold of God, casts off the husk of corruption, and regains celestial excellence. Like the butterfly, it leaves the chrysalis behind, and spreads its golden wings in the sunbeams of eternal day.

Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Job 16:22 to Job 17:16. Job pleads in favour of his prayer for Divine vindication, that death is before him and he has no hope, if he must now die.

Job 17:2 is obscure; the general sense seems to be that Job complains of the delusive hopes, held out by the friends, of return to health and prosperity (Peake).

Job 17:3 continues the idea of Job 16:20 f. God, as Jobs advocate, is to give to God as his creditor a pledge that He will in the future vindicate him. Who else will strike hands with Job over such a bargain?

Job 17:4. Not Jobs unintelligent friends.

Job 17:5 as translated in RV is a threat to the friends that their denunciations of Job will be punished by the suffering of their children (Duhm regards the verse as a gloss).

Job 17:6 f. resumes Jobs complaint of his misery.

Job 17:8 f., its effect on the righteous. These verses, as they stand, must express Jobs conviction of final victory. But are they not rather an extract from some speech of the friends? (Duhm, Peake).

Job 17:10-12 appears to be a repudiation of the friends delusive hopes of recovery. But the whole passage is very obscure except Job 16:11 a.

Job 17:13-15. Translate as mg., Job has no hopes. In Job 16:16 b the sense is not certain.

Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

Job has much more to say than his friends had, and we may marvel at the detailed way in which he describes his present condition in contrast to what he had once enjoyed. “My spirit is broken, my days are extinguished, the grave is ready for me” (v.1). Was it true that mockers were with him? They might think they were comforters, but were they not mocking? (v.2).

Job considered himself so despised that no one would even shake hands with him, and he thought that God had hidden their heart from understanding (vv.3-4). In verse 5 he certainly was not accusing his friends of flattering him, but did he mean that he would not dare to flatter them?

But rather than being flattered by people, Job now thought that God had made him a byword of the people (v.6), one in whose face men would spit. If this was not literally true, it was true figuratively. His sorrow had affected his eyesight and he felt his bodily members were like shadows. (v.7). If men were upright they would be astonished at Job’s sufferings, but his friends showed no such astonishment. In fact Job, knowing himself innocent of the charges against him, was stirred up against the hypocrisy of his friends, and Job would hold to his way in spite of the opposition. As he says, “he who has clean hands will be stronger and stronger” (v.9). This is true, but at the time did Job feet stronger and stronger? Thank God his experience would certainly end in his being strengthened.

In verse 10 Job pleads with his friends to come back again, that is, no doubt, to come back to a sensible position of actually being comforters, for he had found none of the three to be wise men. (v.11). It seemed to him his life was finished, and there was nothing to live for. In verse 12 it seems he refers to his friends as changing the night into day, that is, regarding Job’s distressing night time experiences as light enough for them to understand that his troubles were because of his sin.

Fuente: Grant’s Commentary on the Bible

XIV.

“MY WITNESS IN HEAVEN”

Job 16:1-22; Job 17:1-16

Job SPEAKS

IF it were comforting to be told of misery and misfortune, to hear the doom of insolent evildoers described again and again in varying terms, then Job should have been comforted. But his friends had lost sight of their errand, and he had to recall them to it.

“I have heard many such things:

Afflictive comforters are ye all.

Shall vain words have an end?”

He would have them consider that perpetual harping on one string is but a sober accomplishment! Returning one after another to the wicked man, the godless sinner, crafty, froward, sensual, overbearing, and his certain fate of disaster and extinction, they are at once obstinately ungracious and to Jobs mind pitifully inept. He is indisposed to argue afresh with them, but he cannot refrain from expressing his sorrow and indeed his indignation that they have offered him a stone for bread. Excusing themselves, they had blamed him for his indifference to the “consolations of God.” All he had been aware of was their “joining words together” against him with much shaking of the head. Was that Divine consolation? Anything, it seemed, was good enough for him, a man under the stroke of God. Perhaps he is a little unfair to his comforters. They cannot drop their creed in order to assuage his grief. In a sense it would have been easy to murmur soothing inanities.

“One writes that Other friends remain,

That Loss is common to the race-

And common is the commonplace,

And vacant chaff well meant for grain.”

“That loss is common would not make

My own less bitter, rather more:

Too common! Never morning wore

To evening, but some heart did break.”

Even so: the courteous superficial talk of men who said, Friend, you are only accidentally afflicted; there is no stroke of God in this: wait a little till the shadows pass, and meanwhile let us cheer you by stories of old times: – such talk would have served Job even less than the serious attempt of the friends to settle the problem. It is therefore with somewhat inconsiderate irony he blames them for not giving what, if they had offered it, he would have rejected with scorn.

“I also could speak like you;

If your soul were in my souls stead,

I could join words together against you,

And shake my head at you;

I could strengthen you with my mouth,

And the solace of my lips should assuage your grief.”

The passage is throughout ironical. No change of tone occurs in Job 16:5, as the opening word but in the English version is intended to imply. Job means, of course, that such consolation as they were offering he never would have offered them. It would be easy, but abhorrent.

So far in sad sarcasm; and then, the sense of desolation falling too heavily on his mind for banter or remonstrance, he returns to his complaint. What is he among men? What is he in himself? What is he before God? Alone, stricken, the object of fierce assault and galling reproach. After a pause of sorrowful thought he resumes the attempt to express his woes, a final protest before his lips are silent in death. He cannot hope that speaking will relieve his sorrow or mitigate his pain. He would prefer to bear on

“In all the silent manliness of grief.”

But as yet the appeal he has made to God remains unanswered, for aught he knows unheard. It appears therefore his duty to his own reputation and his faith that he endeavour yet again to break the obstinate doubts of his integrity which still estrange from him those who were his friends. He uses indeed language that will not commend his case but tend to confirm every suspicion. Were he wise in the worlds way he would refrain from repeating his complaint against God. Rather would he speak of his misery as a simple fact of experience and strive to argue himself into submission. This line he has not taken and never takes. It is present to his own mind that the hand of God is against him. Whether men will join him by and by in an appeal from God to God he cannot tell. But once more all that he sees or seems to see he will declare. Every step may bring him into more painful isolation, yet he will proclaim his wrong.

“Certainly, now, He hath wearied me out.

Thou hast made desolate my company;

Thou hast taken hold of me,

And it is a witness against me;

And my leanness riseth up against me

Bearing witness to my face.”

He is exhausted; he has come to the last stage. The circle of his family and friends in which he once stood enjoying the love and esteem of all-where is it now? That hold of life is gone. Then, as if in sheer malice, God has plucked health from him, and doing so, left a charge of unworthiness. By the sore disease the Divine hand grasps him, keeps him down. The emaciation of his body bears witness against him as an object of wrath. Yes; God is his enemy, and how terrible an enemy! He is like a savage lion that tears with his teeth and glares as if in act to devour. With God, men also, in their degree, persecute and assail him. People from the city have come out to gaze upon him. Word has gone round that he is being crushed by the Almighty for proud defiance and blasphemy. Men who once trembled before him have smitten him upon the cheek reproachfully. They gather in groups to jeer at him. He is delivered into their hands.

But it is God, not men, of whose strange work he has most bitterly to speak. Words almost fail him to express what his Almighty Foe has done.

I was at ease, and He brake me asunder;

Yea he hath taken me by the neck

And dashed me to pieces:

He hath also set me as His butt,

His arrows compass me round about,

He cleaveth my reins asunder and spareth not,

He poureth my gall on the ground;

He breaketh me with breach upon breach,

He runneth upon me like a giant.

Figure after figure expresses the sense of persecution by one full of resource who cannot be resisted. Job declares himself to be physically bruised and broken. The stings and sores of his disease are like arrows shot from every side that rankle in his flesh. He is like a fortress beleaguered and stormed by some irresistible enemy. His strength humbled to the dust, his eyes foul with weeping, the eyelids swollen so that he cannot see, he lies abased and helpless, stricken to the very heart. But not in the chastened mood of one who has done evil and is now brought to contrite submission. That is as far from him as ever. The whole account is of persecution, undeserved. He suffers, but protests still that there is no violence in his hands, also his prayer is pure. Let neither God nor man think he is concealing sin and making appeal craftily. Sincere he is in every word.

At this point, where Jobs impassioned language might be expected to lead to a fresh outburst against heaven and earth, one of the most dramatic turns in the thought of the sufferer brings it suddenly to a minor harmony with the creation and the Creator. His excitement is intense. Spiritual eagerness approaches the highest point. He invokes the earth to help him and the mountain echoes. He protests that his claim of integrity has its witness and must be acknowledged.

For this new and most pathetic effort to reach a benignant fidelity in God which all his cries have not yet stirred, the former speeches have made preparation. Rising from the thought that it was all one to God whether he lived or died since the perfect and the wicked are alike destroyed, bewailing the want of a daysman between him and the Most High, Job in the tenth chapter touched the thought that his Maker could not despise the work of His own hands. Again, in chapter 14, the possibility of redemption from Sheol gladdened him for a little. Now, under the shadow of imminent death, he abandons the hope of deliverance from the underworld. Immediately, if at all, his vindication must come. And it exists, written on the breast of earth, open to the heavens, somewhere in clear words before the Highest. Not vainly did the speaker in his days of past felicity serve God with all his heart. The God he then worshipped heard his prayers, accepted his offerings, made him glad with a friendship that was. no empty dream. Somewhere his Divine Friend lives still, observes still his tears and agonies and cries. Those enemies about him taunting him with sins he never committed, this horrible malady bearing him down into death; -God knows of these, knows them to be cruel and undeserved. He cries to that God, Eloah of the Elohim, Higher than the highest.

O Earth, cover not my blood,

And let my cry have no resting place!

Even now, lo! my witness is in heaven,

And He that voucheth for me is on high.

My friends scorn me:

Mine eye sheds tears unto God-

That he would right a man against God,

And a son of man against his friend.

Now, in the present stage of being, before those years expire that lead him to the grave, Job entreats the vindication which exists in the records of heaven. As a son of man he pleads, not as one who has any peculiar claim, but simply as a creature of the Almighty; and he pleads for the first time with tears. The fact that earth, too, is besought to help him must not be overlooked. There is a touch of wide and wistful emotion, a sense that Eloah must regard the witness of His world. The thought has its colour from a very old feeling; it takes us back to primeval faith, and the dumb longing before faith.

Is there in any sense a deeper depth in the faithfulness of God, a higher heaven, more difficult to penetrate, of Divine benignity? Job is making a bold effort to break that barrier we have already found to exist in Hebrew thought between God as revealed by nature and providence and God as vindicator of the individual life. The man has that in his own heart which vouches for his life, though calamity and disease impeach him. And in the heart of God also there must be a witness to His faithful servant, although, meanwhile, something interferes with the testimony God could bear. Jobs appeal is to the sun beyond the rolling clouds to shine. It is there; God is faithful and true. It will shine. But let it shine now! Human life is brief and delay will be disastrous. Pathetic cry-a struggle against what in ordinary life is the inexorable. How many have gone the way whence they shall not return, unheard apparently, unvindicated, hidden in calumny and shame! And yet Job was right. The Maker has regard to the work of His hands.

The philosophy of Jobs appeal is this, that beneath all seeming discord there is one clear note. The universe is one and belongs to One, from the highest heaven to the deepest pit. Nature, providence, -what are they but the veil behind which the One Supreme is hidden, the veil Gods own hands have wrought? We see the Divine in the folds, of the veil, the marvellous pictures of the arras. Yet behind is He who weaves the changing forms, iridescent with colours of heaven, dark with unutterable mystery. Man is now in the shadow of the veil, now in the light of it, self-pitying, exultant, in despair, in ecstasy. He would pass the barrier. It will not yield at his will. It is no veil now, but a wall of adamant. Yet faith on this side answers to truth beyond; of this the soul is assured. The cry is for God to unravel the enigmas of His own providence, to unfold the principle of His discipline, to make clear what is perplexing to the mind and conscience of His thinking, suffering creature. None but He who weaves the web can withdraw it, and let the light of eternity shine on the tangles of time. From God the Concealer to God the Revealer, from God who hides Himself to God who is Light, in whom is no darkness at all, we appeal. To pray on-that is mans high privilege, mans spiritual life.

So the passage we have read is a splendid utterance of the wayworn travelling soul conscious of sublime possibilities, -shall we not say, certainties? Job is God-inspired in his cry, not profane, not mad, but prophetic. For God is a bold dealer with men, and He likes bold sons. The impeachment we almost shuddered to hear is not abominable to Him because it is the truth of a soul. The claim that God is mans witness is the true courage of faith: it is sincere, and it is justified.

The demand for immediate vindication still urged is inseparable from the circumstances.

For when a few years are come

I shall go the way whence I shall not return.

My spirit is consumed, my days extinct;

The grave is ready for me.

Surely there are mockeries with me

And mine eye lodgeth in their provocation.

Provide a pledge now; be surety for me with Thyself.

Who is there that will strike hands with me?

Moving towards the underworld, the fire of his spirit burning low because of his disease, his body preparing its own grave, the bystanders flouting him with mockeries under a sense of which his eyes remain closed in weary endurance, he has need for one to undertake for him, to give him a pledge of redemption. But who is there excepting God to whom he can appeal? What other friend is left? Who else would be surety for one so forlorn? Against disease and fate, against the seeming wreck of hope and life, will not God Himself stand up for His servant? As for the men his friends, his enemies, the Divine suretyship for Job will recoil upon them and their cruel taunts. Their hearts are “hid from understanding,” unable to grasp the truth of the case; “Therefore Thou shalt not exalt them”-that is, Thou shalt bring them low. Yes, when God redeems His pledge, declares openly that He has undertaken for His servant, the proverb shall be fulfilled-“He that giveth his fellows for a prey, even the eyes of his children shall fail.” It is a proverb of the old way of thinking and carries a kind of imprecation. Job forgets himself in using it. Yet how, otherwise, is the justice of God to be invoked against those who pervert judgment and will not receive the sincere defence of a dying man?

“I am even made a byeword of the populace;

I am become one in whose face they spit:

Mine eye also fails by reason of sorrow.”

This is apparently parenthetical-and then Job returns to the result of the intervention of his Divine Friend. One reason why God should become his surety is the pitiable state he is in. But another reason is the new impetus that will be given to religion, the awakening of good men out of their despondency, the reassurance of those who are pure in heart, the growth of spiritual strength in the faithful and true. A fresh light thrown on providence shall indeed startle and revive the world.

“Upright men shall be amazed at this,

And the innocent shall rouse himself against the godless.

And the righteous shall keep his way,

And he that hath clean hands wax stronger and stronger.”

With this hope, that his life is to be rescued from darkness and the faith of the good re-established by the fulfilment of Gods suretyship, Job comforts himself for a little-but only for a little, a moment of strength, during which he has courage to dismiss his friends:-

“But as for you all, turn ye, and go;

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

They have forfeited all claim to his attention. Their continued discussion of the ways of God will only aggravate his pain. Let them take their departure then and leave him in peace.

The final passage of the speech referring to a hope present to Jobs mind has been variously interpreted. It is generally supposed that the reference is to the promise held out by the friends that repentance will bring him relief from trouble and new prosperity. But this is long ago dismissed. It seems clear that my hope, an expression twice used, cannot refer to one pressed upon Job but never accepted. It must denote either the hope that God would after Jobs death lay aside His anger and forgive, or the hope that God would strike hands with him and undertake his case against all adverse forces and circumstances. If this be the meaning, the course of thought in the last strophe, from Job 17:11 onward, is the following, -Life is running to a low ebb with me, all I had once in my heart to do is arrested, brought to an end; so gloomy are my thoughts that they set night for day, the light is near unto darkness. If I wait till death come and Sheol be my habitation and my body is given to corruption, where then shall my hope of vindication be? As for the fulfilment of my trust in God, who shall see it?

The effort once made to maintain hope even in the face of death is not forgotten. But he questions now whether it has the least ground in fact. The sense of bodily decay masters his brave prevision of a deliverance from Sheol. His mind needs yet another strain put upon it before it shall rise to the magnificent assertion-Without my flesh I shall see God. The tides of trust ebb and flow. There is here a low ebb. The next advance will mark the springtide of resolute belief.

If I wait till Sheol is my house;

Till I have spread my couch in darkness:

If I shall have said to corruption, My father art thou,

To the worm, My mother and my sister-

Where then were my hope?

As for my hope, who shall see it?

It shall go down to the bars of Sheol,

When once there is rest in the dust.

How strenuous is the thought that has to fight with the grave and corruption! The body in its emaciation and decay, doomed to be the prey of worms, appears to drag with it into the nether darkness the eager life of the spirit. Those who have the Christian outlook to another life may measure by the oppression Job has to endure the value of that revelation of immortality which is the gift of Christ.

Not in error, not in unbelief, did a man like Job fight with grim death, strive to keep it at bay till his character was cleared. There was no acknowledged doctrine of the future to found upon. Of sheer necessity each burdened soul had to seek its own Apocalypse. He who had suffered with bleeding heart a lifelong sacrifice, he who had striven to free his fellow slaves and sank at last overborne by tyrannous power, the brave defeated, the good betrayed, those who sought through heathen beliefs and those who found in revealed religion the promises of God-all alike stood in sorrowful ignorance before inexorable death, beheld the shadows of the underworld and singly battled for hope amidst the deepening gloom. The sense of the overwhelming disaster of death to one whose life and religion are scornfully condemned is not ascribed to Job as a peculiar trial, rarely mingling with human experience. The writer of the book has himself felt it and has seen the shadow of it on many a face. “Where,” as one asks, “were the tears of God as He thrust back into eternal stillness the hands stretched out to Him in dying faith?”

There was a religion which gave large and elaborate answer to the questions of mortality. The wide intelligence of the author of Job can hardly have missed the creed and ceremonial of Egypt; he cannot have failed to remember its “Book of the Dead.” His own work, throughout, is at once a parallel and a contrast to that old vision of future life and Divine judgment. It has been affirmed that some of the forms of expression, especially in the nineteenth chapter, have their source in the Egyptian scripture, and that the “Book of the Dead” is full of spiritual aspirations which give it a striking resemblance to the Book of Job. Now, undoubtedly, the correspondence is remarkable and will bear examination. The soul comes before Osiris, who holds the shepherds crook and the penal scourge. Thoth (or Logos) breathes new spirit into the embalmed body, and the dead pleads for himself before the assessors-“Hail to thee, great Lord of Justice. I arrive near thee. I am one of those consecrated to thee on the earth. I reach the land of eternity. I rejoin the eternal country. Living is he who dwelleth in darkness; all his grandeurs live.” The dead is in fact not dead, he is recreated; the mouth of no worm shall devour him. At the close of the “Book of the Dead” it is written, the departed “shall be among the gods; his flesh and bones shall be healthy as one who is not dead. He shall shine as a star forever and ever. He seeth God with his flesh.” The defence of the soul in claiming beatitude is this: “I have committed no revenge in act or in heart, no excesses in love. I have injured no one with lies. I have driven away no beggars, committed no treacheries, caused no tears. I have not taken anothers property, nor ruined another, nor destroyed the laws of righteousness. I have not aroused contests, nor neglected the Creator of my soul. I have not disturbed the joy of others. I have not passed by the oppressed, sinning against my Creator, or the Lord, or the heavenly powers I am pure, pure.”

There are many evident resemblances which have been already studied and would repay further attention; but the questions occur, how far the author of the Book of Job refused Egyptian influences, and why, in the face of a solution of his problem apparently thrust upon him with the authority of ages, he yet exerted himself to find a solution of his own, meanwhile throwing his hero into the hopelessness of one to whom death as a physical fact is final, compelled to forego the expectation of a daysman who should affirm his righteousness before the Lord of all. The “Book of the Dead” was, for one thing, identified with polytheism, with idolatry and a priestly system; and a thinker whose belief was entirely monotheistic, whose mind turned decisively from ritual, whose interests were widely humane, was not likely to accept as a revelation the promises of Egyptian priests to their aristocratic patrons, or to seek light from the mysteries of Isis and Osiris. Throughout his book our author is advancing to a conclusion altogether apart from the ideas of Egyptian faith regarding the trust of the soul. But chiefly his mind seems to have been repelled by the excessive care given to the dead body, with the consequent materialising of religion. Life to him meant so much that he needed a far more spiritual basis for its continuance than could be found in the preservation of the worn out frame; With rare and unsurpassed endeavour he was straining beyond time and sense after a vision of life in the union of mans spirit with its Maker, and that Divine constancy in which alone faith could have acceptance and repose. No thought of maintaining himself in existence by having his body embalmed is ever expressed by Job. The author seems to scorn that childish dream of continuance. Death means decay, corruption. This doom passed on the body the stricken life must endure, and the soul must stay itself upon the righteousness and grace of God.

Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary