TEXT [Commentary]

  I.   Job: Hope for a Sufferer (16:1–17:16)

1.   God as an adversary (16:1-17)

1 Then Job spoke again:

2 “I have heard all this before.

What miserable comforters you are!

3 Won’t you ever stop blowing hot air?

What makes you keep on talking?

4 I could say the same things if you were in my place.

I could spout off criticism and shake my head at you.

5 But if it were me, I would encourage you.

I would try to take away your grief.

6 Instead, I suffer if I defend myself,

and I suffer no less if I refuse to speak.

7 “O God, you have ground me down

and devastated my family.

8 As if to prove I have sinned, you’ve reduced me to skin and bones.

My gaunt flesh testifies against me.

9 God hates me and angrily tears me apart.

He snaps his teeth at me

and pierces me with his eyes.

10 People jeer and laugh at me.

They slap my cheek in contempt.

A mob gathers against me.

11 God has handed me over to sinners.

He has tossed me into the hands of the wicked.

12 “I was living quietly until he shattered me.

He took me by the neck and broke me in pieces.

Then he set me up as his target,

13 and now his archers surround me.

His arrows pierce me without mercy.

The ground is wet with my blood.[*]

14 Again and again he smashes against me,

charging at me like a warrior.

15 I wear burlap to show my grief.

My pride lies in the dust.

16 My eyes are red with weeping;

dark shadows circle my eyes.

17 Yet I have done no wrong,

and my prayer is pure.

NOTES

16:4 spout off criticism. The Heb. is not clear as to whether the speech is positive or negative. The word khabar [TH2266, ZH2489] has the meaning “bind,” which could be taken metaphorically as “stringing arguments together.” However, it has been established that there are two other Semitic words with the same spelling that refer to speech, and it is possible one of them is used here. The word khabar is found in contexts such as the Flood account, where the uproar or clamor is part of the violence that causes the Flood. If this is the word intended, Job would be referring to the speeches as a noisy argument (harangue). Yet another option arises since the word khabar is also found in Arabic, used in reference to eloquent speech. There are disadvantages to all three possibilities. The word “bind” is an unusual metaphor for speech or argumentation. The word meaning “contentious” or “noisy argumentation” is well established with some clear biblical uses (e.g., Prov 21:9; 25:24). The difficulty is that the nodding of the head found in the parallel lines—Job 16:4b (nu‘a [TH5128, ZH5675]) and 16:5b (nid [TH5205, ZH5764])—is used elsewhere in Job of a sympathetic action rather than a condemning one (2:11; 42:11). Further, it would be contradictory for Job to speak of haranguing his friends if they were in his place, for then he would be no better than they are. The problem with the word meaning “eloquent speech” is that it is known only in late Arabic as a development from a word referring to something bright or colorful. In the larger context, the friends attempted to correct Job and to be sympathetic at the same time. It seems that Job speaks of the friends as attempting to “bind words on him,” even as they try to console him with a nodding head.

16:5 I would encourage you. The Heb. verb (’amets [TH553, ZH599]) simply means “to make strong”; applied to language, it refers to “fortifying speech.” Eliphaz used this word to speak of how Job formerly encouraged the despondent (4:4), and Job here says he would do the same thing for the friends were he in their place.

try to take away your grief. The Heb. is difficult, but it appears to say that “sympathy would silence my lips.” If this is the correct understanding, the verse makes reference to two critical aspects of consolation: speaking words of comfort (16:5a) and being present in silence (16:5b) when the pain is too deep for words.

16:8 As if to prove I have sinned . . . My gaunt flesh testifies against me. The Heb. offers a vivid metaphor in court terminology: The gaunt figure of Job is evidence for a conviction of guilt.

16:11 tossed me into. The sense is rather that Job was pushed down by the hands of the wicked. Job described himself as cast down (12:5); Eliphaz described the misfortunate as fallen (4:4).

16:13 wet with my blood. Job pictured himself as being attacked by a warrior. The arrows have found their mark in his inner organs (lit. “kidneys,” but used generically for the digestive organs) and split them open. The description is that of a burst gallbladder with the bile running on the ground.

16:15 I wear burlap to show my grief. Lit., “I have sewed sackcloth to my skin.” Job’s state of lamentation was so permanent that he never took off the garments of sorrow.

My pride lies in the dust. Lit., “I have buried my horn in the dust.” The horn of an animal was representative of its strength, power, and nobility. Job had lost every semblance of human dignity and worth in life.

16:16 dark shadows circle my eyes. Lit., “shadow of death”—it is a way of saying “the deepest of all darkness” or even “death.” Dark eyes (deep bags under the eyes) are a sign of excessive worry and sorrow.

COMMENTARY [Text]

Eliphaz had responded to Job by deriding his claims to wisdom (15:2-3) and had introduced his own theology with the bombastic claims of the wise (15:17-19). All this was familiar to Job, and its repetition was not merely redundant—it was injurious. The conventional application of wisdom did not work in Job’s situation, but Job seemed to acknowledge that their intent was noble, that they wanted to be sympathetic, and that they wanted to restore. Job could use wisdom in this way if he were in the place of his friends; Eliphaz himself had said that Job was known for just such encouragement (4:4). This knowledge in itself should give these “miserable comforters” pause. Job had been the master of the teachings of their brand of wisdom, but now he had encountered a situation where the old analysis of wisdom was not sufficient. They should not simply conclude that Job could not apply his own medicine to himself, as Eliphaz had done (4:5); they should consider the possibility that more is at work in Job’s situation than they can account for.

At this point, Job expressed his lament to God (16:6-17). Though the friends must hear it if they were to learn wisdom, Job had to address God, for God was the source of the problem, and he should provide the solution. One of the most important therapies for all sufferers is the freedom to unreservedly express their complaint to God. These words of Job are like those found frequently in Psalms, the kind of lament Job’s author probably knew very well.

Job knew that complaining would not relieve the pain, but silence would not help either. God had worn Job down to the point where his earthly existence had been virtually exterminated. His family had been decimated, and his body was emaciated. All this appeared to be clear evidence of his sin, but there was no sin, no explanation. Job could only reiterate the situation in his complaint. God had attacked him, torn him apart in anger; God gnashed his teeth at Job and pierced him with his gaze. In part, Job perceived this through the treatment he received from those around him in that they held him in contempt and gaped at him with open mouths, if not actually striking him in the face (16:10). It was a verbal lynching. Their judgment was that Job should accept the testimony of his decimated situation, for God had banned Job to the company of those who do wrong.

Job was secure and at peace when, without warning, God attacked him the way a warrior assaults his enemy (16:12). God’s archers had found their mark; his gallbladder had been pierced and the bile was flowing on the ground. The reference to internal organs was a way of Job expressing the torment he felt. The kidneys were the organ used to express emotion, much the way “heart” is used in English. In our words, Job had a broken and crushed heart, expressed here as the arrows of a warrior dashing through his innards and spilling their content on the ground. Job was attacked blow after blow, so he was in a perpetual state of lamentation—it was as if the clothes of mourning were sewn to his body. He had no pride left—it was buried in the soil. His face was inflamed and red from weeping; his eyes were black from stress and pain. Job concluded this lament in words that seem to deliberately recall the suffering servant of Isaiah (cf. 16:17; Isa 53:9b)—and all this, though he had done no violence and his praise of God was pure.

The most visible side of suffering is physical pain, which Job described in terms of his battered body. It would be a mistake, however, to read this lament as though the physical pain were the worst of his suffering. Job spoke of his bowels to make it clear that it was the emotional torment that was the most unbearable. This was not only caused by the loss of his family; in addition, he was being despised by friends who assumed that God had attacked him because of his sins. He knew that he had been stricken, smitten, and afflicted by God, but he also knew that it was not because of his sins.

Eliphaz had it wrong; he had described the arrogant rich, those who substituted faith in wealth for faith in God. Job was not that kind of man. He knew it to be true even if his friends could not accept it. Job knew his friends would never understand the truth without an explanation. The deepest anguish is when there are no answers and others turn away. In some sense, Job had become an enemy to God. Such knowledge tore at his insides, especially because there was nothing that he could do to change his status.

All that was left for Job was to lament his case to God, the one who had attacked him. But in all this, Job could not turn against God because God was all he had. Though God may attack him, God was the one he must turn to as a witness and a friend, for God alone knew the truth. Job remained confident that truth would prevail.