Deeper Commentary
Job 16:1 Then Job answered-
Job only gives the first six verses to responding to Eliphaz and then
addresses himself to God. Job here despairs at how Eliphaz
has merely repeated his earlier speech; and his disillusion with the friends
leads him in this speech to therefore turn to God more strongly and
directly. And this is where disillusion with fellow believers and religious
structures will lead the truly spiritual person- to the God whom we know has
the answers to our unaddressed issues and questions, even if for now He is
not revealing them.
Job 16:2 I have heard many such things. You are all miserable comforters!-
The friends admit they are only saying what was generally accepted wisdom at
the time. Job had heard this many times over. But it gave him no comfort.
This leads him to seek "comfort" from God; and the restoration prophets
promise such "comfort" direct from God to the exiles who had not found it in
traditional answers (Is. 40:1; 66:13).
Job 16:3 Shall vain words have an end? Or what provokes you that you answer?-
Job is led by the annoying, empty answers of the friends to long for "an
end". And that is what he is given when Elihu and then God appear at the
end. His enquiry as to what was motivating them can be read as genuine
pity for them, and a desire to help them forward spiritually- even from
his own desperate position. This basic desire was rewarded at the end,
when he is asked to pray for the friends and thereby save them from their
own stupidity.
Job 16:4 I also could speak as you do. If your soul were in my soul’s
place, I could join words together against you, and shake my head at you-
It was against the Lord Jesus that the Jews shook their head, as He died
the death of the suffering servant (Ps. 22:7). Despite his own awful
situation, with all the self-centeredness which is elicited by extreme
physical pain and suffering, Job thinks himself into their very soul,
imagining how he would react in their situation. This basic concern for
them was turned into reality when God makes Job their saviour in the end.
Job 16:5 but I would strengthen you with my mouth. The solace of my lips would relieve you- We can't be brethren in Christ who have no effect on the rest of the body. We all have an influence on others. Words of our brethren really can strengthen and relieve. Our behaviour, however passive, has a powerful effect on our brethren. We are all members of one body. See on :6. On the contrary, a whole community can be cursed for the sake of one man’s sin, even if he later repents (2 Kings 24:3,4). The fact we can be guilty of causing others to stumble means that we can limit God's gracious plan for them. "Strengthen" is exactly what God wanted to do for the exiles in their suffering (s.w. Is. 35:3; 41:10).
Job 16:6 Though I speak, my grief is not subsided. Though I forbear, what
am I eased?-
"Relieve" in :5 is the same word translated "subside" in :6. Job is
therefore pointing
out that the words of another can relieve grief in a way that ones’ own
self-talk simply cannot (Job 16:5,6).
Job 16:7 But now, God, you have surely worn me out- Or, "wearied",
the same word used of the weariness of sinful Judah (Jer. 9:5; 12:5; Ez.
24:12). Job was to be read as their representative, although not
personally sinful.
You have made desolate all my company- Job had sought comfort from the friends, his "company", but he feels that the lack of comfort from them is also somehow God's testing of him. Those who despair at the lack of comfort from their fellow believers would do well to adopt this perspective; that this too is from God, and as in Job's case in this speech, it is designed to drive us the closer to Him personally.
Job 16:8 You have shrivelled me up. This is a witness against me. My
leanness rises up against me. It testifies to my face- Job looked at
his body, as the Lord looked upon His own body from His elevated position
on the cross (Ps. 22:17). The once fat and full fleshed Job (see on Job
15:27) was now thin and emaciated.
Job 16:9 He has torn me in His wrath, and persecuted me. He has gnashed on
me with His teeth- Job 41:14 speaks of how terrible are the teeth of
the creature God has made; but He alone can open the mouth of it and is
fearless before its' teeth. The idea of the connection back to Job 16:9 is
that God knows all about teeth. He has designed them, and even if Job
thinks God is gnashing at Him like a beast, he must accept that God
creates the beast and its teeth.
My adversary sharpens His eyes on me- Job sees God as his adversary / enemy; he understood
God to be the Satan. God's eyes often refer to the Angels. For the
connection between the satan and an Angel, see on Job 1:6. Quite
possibly Job considers that he is suffering because of the 'evil eye' of
the friends; again, they are the Satan. But he fails to consider that God
could easily overcome that. In fact it is God's Angel eye that is upon
Him. He is responding to Eliphaz's claim that Job has the evil eye (Job
15:12).
Job 16:10 They have gaped on me with their mouth. They have struck me on
the cheek reproachfully- The implication could be that the
friends not only gaped at him and gathered themselves to him, but also
literally struck him on the cheek in rebuke of his words.
The exact language of the sufferings of the
Lord Jesus, the ultimate "suffering servant" (Ps. 22:13; Mic. 5:1). I have
earlier suggested that the "friends" morph with the Satan figure, adopting
his mentality, and proceed to actually bring some of the sufferings upon
Job. Their aggression was to the point of pulling faces and hitting him.
Yet they originally came to see him to comfort him, apparently sincerely.
This is how far and how quickly a false theological understanding can
transform human relationships for the worse. They also spat in his face
(see on Job 17:6).
They gather themselves together against me- A reference to the friends gathering themselves together to supposedly comfort Job.
Job 16:11 God delivers me to the ungodly, and casts me into the hands of
the wicked- There is reason to think that Eliphaz, the leader of the friends, may have
been the specific individual referred to as 'satan' in the prologue. God
singles him out for especial condemnation at the end (Job 42:7). After one
of Eliphaz's speeches, Job responds with what appears to be a comment upon
him, rather than God, here in :9-11. Eliphaz was a Temanite, from where Job's
afflicters came. See on Job 1:6. But Job perceives that God is working
through the friends; and his thoughts about them in :9,10 now therefore
merge into his thoughts about God, so clearly did He see God working
through them. This is a sure example as to how we can see the difficult
people in our lives- as used by God. This removes some amount of personal
anger with them, even though God is not forcing them to behave as they do,
and they will be ultimately accountable for it as the friends were.
Job 16:12 I was at ease, and He broke me apart- The language
here is pretty much blasphemous: “I was at ease, and he broke me in two;
he seized me by the neck and dashed me to pieces”. Job accuses God of
random violence, and serious abuse of power. If only he knew the high
opinion God had of him, as revealed in the prologue!
There are some very evident ways in which Job spiritually grew. In Job 3:26 he originally says that his life previous to his afflictions had not been a life of ease; but as a result of his suffering, he realized that actually it had been "at ease".
Yes, He has taken me by the neck, and dashed me to pieces- Job perceives God as a lion or beast of prey, taking him off to His lair by the neck and now ripping him apart.
He has also set me up for His target- Like the friends, Job
is starting to repeat himself; for he has said this in Job 6:4; 7:20.
Eliphaz blames Job's troubles upon the “sons of Resheph” (Job 5:7); but
Job’s response is that the source of the evil in his life is ultimately
from God and not any such being. Eliphaz there speaks of how man’s
trouble comes “as the sons of Resheph fly upwards”. Resheph was known as
“the lord of the arrow” and the Ugaritic tablets associate him with
archery (William J. Fulco, The Canaanite God Resep
(New Haven, CT: American Oriental Society, 1976)). We would therefore be
justified in reading in an ellipsis here: man’s trouble comes “as the
[arrows of] the sons of Resheph fly upwards”. Job’s response is that “The
arrows of the Almighty are in me” (Job 6:4), and he laments that God
is an archer using him as his target for practice (Job 7:20; 16:12,13).
Job refuses to accept Eliphaz’s explanation that Job is a victim of
Resheph’s arrows. For Job, if God is “the Almighty” then there is no space
left for Resheph. Each blow he received, each arrow strike, was from God
and not Resheph.
Job 16:13 His archers surround me. He splits my kidneys apart, and does
not spare. He pours out my gall on the ground- The prophets speak of
archers surrounding Zion, and the language of gall and kidneys spilled on
the ground is that of Jeremiah in Lamentations reflecting on the fall of
Jerusalem to the Babylonians. God was to threaten His sinful people that
He would "not spare" (Jer. 13:14; Lam. 2:2). He finally did, in His grace.
Job has earlier hinted that God would have a tender desire to the work of
his hands at the end (Job 14:15), but in his weakness he has for now lost
that perspective. And yet at this very nadir of faith and understanding,
he becomes the representative of God's people who felt He had not spared
them.
"And does not spare" is literally "without pity". Surely this is alluded to in James 5:11. In Job we see that in "the end of the Lord", He is in fact "very pitiful and of tender mercy". Again we have Job wrong. And this is yet another outburst he later has to repent of. Just as Joseph appeared hard to his brothers whilst having a heart that broke and wept for them, so is God with man.
Job 16:14 He breaks me with blow after blow. He runs on me like a giant-
LXX "They...", as if Job saw God manifest in the abusers. This was the
situation in the Babylonian overthrow of Judah. Just
as Eliphaz had
exaggerated Job's position to the point of accusing him of running upon
God as a charging soldier (Job 15:26), so Job now makes the same mistake
and does the same, exaggerating positions and extrapolating to make God
like a giant charging at him. This was not at all the case. But once one
party in a dialogue starts distorting things grossly, the partner in the
dialogue tends to do the same in other contexts. And this is a lesson for
us today.
It was so hard for Job to accept that God and not any orthodox ‘Satan’
figure was his adversary. It’s one thing to deduce from the Bible that
both good and disaster comes from the Lord, as per Is. 45:5–7. It’s of
course quite another to accept it in real life, and Job is an inspiring
example. Job 16:9–14 is so powerful – the poetry speaks of Job’s awesome
and even angry realization that God is in fact [in a sense] his
enemy / adversary. “Here Job... identifies God as his enemy rather than
his advocate. From his perspective he is led to wonder if the God in whom
he trusted is not in reality his Satan” (J.E. Hartley, The Book of Job (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988) p. 30). See on Job 19:26.
Job 16:15 I have sewed sackcloth on my skin- The language of the
Messianic Ps. 69:11 about the suffering of the Lord Jesus. Sinful Israel
were called to do this in repentance (Jer. 6:26); they refused to do so,
and so they were covered with sackcloth at the time of their judgment
(Lam. 2:10). Job was sorry for himself, and didn't use sackcloth as a sign
of repentance but of self pity. This was to be transformed at the end when
he really repents unconditionally.
And have thrust my horn in the dust- His horn may refer to his reproductive organ, so desperate was he to express his grief.
Job 16:16 My face is red with weeping. Deep darkness is on my eyelids-
"On my eyelids is the shadow of death" (Job 16:16 AV). Job felt he was
facing death right before his eyes, and the shadow of that death was cast
over his eyes. But God disagrees, challenging Job that he has not in fact
seen "the doors of the shadow of death" (Job 38:17 s.w.). Job had only
seen death from a personal, human perspective. God sees death for what it
really is, and it is far more terrible than man perceives. For from God's
perspective it carries with it the tragedy of the eternity which a man has
missed, if he has rejected God. And God is saying that Job hasn't see
death from that perspective.
Job 16:17 Although there is no violence in my hands, and my prayer is
pure- Job oscillates between accepting he has sinned, and protesting
his innocence. The final appearance of God leads him to the unqualified
conclusion that he is indeed a sinner, and this was God's intended outcome
for the exiles in captivity. Job's oscillation however is understandable
once we perceive that he is being set up as representative of God's sinful
people, represented by the friends. He is suffering the judgment for sins
when he himself is innocent, pointing forward to the Lord's representative
sacrifice.
The Hebrew phase translated “not for any
violence” occurs only once elsewhere- in the prophecy of the suffering
servant who “had done no violence” (Is. 53:9). The suffering servant of
later Isaiah is without doubt based upon Job, who was repeatedly called
"My servant" and highly praised by God (Job 1:8; 2:3; 7:2), just as God
praised “My servant” in Is. 42:1-4. Both Job and the suffering servant are
declared "righteous" by God (Is. 42:6).
Isaiah's servant figure represented both Israel, and the Lord Jesus, who
was their representative. That servant figure is presented as weak and
fallible, blind and deaf, as Israel were; but the servant is also the Lord
Jesus, who was perfect but also totally representative of weak Israel. He
thus became the way to their salvation. Job was counted perfect to start
with, but throughout the dialogues he blasphemes and says many wrong
things; but at the end he repents, and his prayer results in the salvation
of the friends. He shared their wrong views and attitudes, but was seen as
perfect; he was their representative. The Lord Jesus didn't sin, unlike
Job. But He likewise identifies with us so that we may identify with Him,
in baptism and in a life lived in Him. And so the blaspheming, cursing Job
is at the very same time the representative of the Lord Jesus, the
suffering servant; and through his sufferings, his people [= the friends]
are saved. This is all God's intricate and amazingly achieved work. The
connections between Job and Isaiah's suffering servant are worth listing:
- "Surely the justice due to me is with Yahweh, and my reward with my God"
(Is. 49:4,5) is so often the language and argument of Job
- The servant was considered “stricken” of God ["yet we did esteem him
stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted", Is. 53:4; "stricken for the
disobedience of My people", Is. 53:8], just as Job was (Job 19:21)
Job was considered to have been chastised by God (Job 5:17); the same word
used of the servant's “chastisement” ("the chastisement of our peace was
upon him", Is. 53:5).
- Job was “despised” by his people (Job 19:18) was the Lord (Is. 53:3) by
brethren. They “forgot” him and 'stayed away' from him (Job 19:13,14); as
God's people “hid their faces” from the servant (Is. 53:3).
- The buffeting / smiting of Job upon the cheek implied by Job 16:10 is
what they did to the suffering servant, who was also smitten on the cheek
(Is. 50:6; 53:4).
- They spat in the face of the servant (Is. 50:6); the Hebrew word
is used only of Job and the suffering servant: "They abhor me, they flee
far from me, and spare not to spit in my face” (Job 30:10; 17:6, RSV).
- Job suffered “not for any violence” in his hands (Job 16:17); and the
phrase is only used elsewhere of the suffering servant suffering not for
any violence: “because he had done no violence” (Is. 53:9).
- Job's prayer was pure (Job 16:17); just as there was no guile found in
the mouth of the servant (Is. 53:9).
Men were astonished / appalled at Job's sufferings (Job 17:8); as they
were at those of the servant (Is. 52:14 s.w.)
- Job's "Who will contend with me?" (Job 13:19) is the very same question
posed by the suffering servant (Is. 50:8)
- The "travail" of the soul of the suffering servant (Is. 53:11) is the
word used for Job's toil / travail (Job 7:3).
Job 16:18 Earth, don’t cover my blood-
The crying out of
blood means he is apparently appealing to God for justice and the revenge
of his wrongly shed blood (as in Dt. 21:1-9), in that he thinks he is
about to die and his death will be unjust and a case of murder. But he
considers God to be a murderous monster, who is slaying him. His appeal is
therefore to someone other than God, to investigate his death and take
vengeance on God. And the wrongful shedding of blood had to be punished by
death- he wanted God punished with death. How blasphemous is that... That
being he appeals to is the "witness" he fantasizes about in :19; the one he fantasized
about in Job 9:32,33, who was higher than both God and himself, who could
place his hand upon both God and man, acting as an "umpire" between God
and man (Job 9:33). The language of "umpire" suggests Job considered God
was not playing by the rules and was unfairly winning against him...
Here he seems to associate himself with unfairly persecuted Abel, whose blood cried out for justice (Gen. 4:10). And yet he earlier compares his seeking of death and not finding it, as a marked man, with the judgment of Cain. He feels he is being treated as Cain when he is in fact as Abel. This is exactly what happened to the Lord in hearing our sins. See on Job 11:15.
Let my cry have no place to rest-
Job makes the amazing comment: “Although He slays
me, yet will I trust in Him” (Job 13:15). The language of ‘slaying’ takes
us back to the Mosaic commands about how a ‘slayer’ of a man might be
killed by the ‘avenger of blood’. Job saw God as slaying him; yet he also
sees God as the ‘witness’ in the case (Job 16:19), and the avenger of
Job’s blood (Job 19:25). Job even asks God to not let the earth cover his
blood, so that God as the avenger of Job’s blood may avenge Job’s death,
continuing the allusions to the avenger of blood scenario. Job feels he is
innocent blood. Job does not see ‘Satan’ as his slayer, and God as the
avenger of his blood. Instead Job – in a quite breathtaking set of
associations – sees God in all these things: the slayer, the legal witness
to the slayer, the avenger of blood, and the One who will enforce the
doing of justice in this case, the One who will not let the earth cover
Job’s blood. If Job really believed in a superhuman Satan, in Satan as the
bad guy and God as the avenger of the injustice, he surely would’ve
expressed himself differently. As Job imagines God as it were taking
vengeance on Himself, so he came to portray for all time the way that evil
and good are indeed both ultimately from God.
Job 16:19 Even now, behold, my witness is in heaven. He who vouches for me
is on high- See on :18. Job in his depths came to know God as his “witness in heaven”; in his former life, “when the eye saw me, it gave witness [s.w.]
to me” (Job 29:11). But Job was brought to learn that the only ultimate
witness in life is God, and it is His testimony and not man’s which is
meaningful.
Job 16:20 My friends scoff at me. My eyes pour out tears to God-
The
emphasis is upon "God"; he had poured out his tears to the friends and
they had scoffed at him. So his experience of disillusion with his
brethren didn't turn him away from God, as so often happens; instead it
drove him to throw himself more intimately upon his God.
Job 16:21 that He would maintain the right of a man with God, of a son of
man with his neighbour!- Job sees his enemy as his "neighbour",
surely referring to the friends. Again we have the hint that they had
effectively morphed into the satan figure bringing some of the actual
distresses upon him. Job felt like having a court case with them before
God. But God's final appearance is to hold a court case against them all,
Job included. Clearly the lesson is that instead of judging our brother
and wanting justice established with him, we should concern ourselves with
God's judgment of us, and our injustice before Him.
Maintaining the right is legal language. Job appeals for ‘witnesses’ (Job 9:33–35; 16:18–22; 19:20–27), an advocate in Heaven (Job 9:33), denies his guilt and demands a legal list of his sins (Job 13:19), he wishes for God to come to trial (Job 9:3), and thus Job is described as a man who has taken out a ‘case’ with God (Job 23:4; 40:2). Job 29–31 is effectively Job’s declaration of legal innocence and an appeal to God to hear his case more sympathetically (Job 31:35). And of course God pronounces a final legal verdict at the very end (Job 42:7), in response to Job’s earlier plea: “Sleeplessly I wait for His reply” (Job 16:22). It’s as if the whole experience of Job was [at least partly] in order to test out the Canaanite theories of ‘Satan’, suffering and evil in the court of Heaven; and also the various theories which arose to explain Judah's captivity in Babylon. The friends represent the traditional views of evil, and often make reference to the myths of their day about ‘Satan’ figures. They speak as if they are the final court – Eliphaz speaks of how the judges and elders of their day, the “holy ones”, had concluded Job was guilty, and that they, the friends, were right: “To which of the holy ones will you appeal [legal language]?... we have [legally] examined this, and it [Job’s guilt] is true” (Job 5:1,27). This is of great comfort to those who feel misjudged by man – above them in Heaven the ultimate Heavenly court is considering our case, and that is all that matters.
AV "Oh that one might plead for a man with God, as a man pleadeth for his neighbour!". "Plead" is the same word translated "umpire" in Job 9:33. The word suggests 'one who is right', a reasoner, an advocate, one who pleads, a reprover (Job 40:2 s.w.). Job's request is not simply for a mediator; he would have used a different word if so. He seems to want to put God in the dock, but knows this is not appropriate; he wants someone else to do this who can legitimately do it. And he is rebuked for this in Job 40:2: "He that reproves / pleads with God, let him answer it!". And Job could not answer; indeed, "let him answer it!" could be a legal summons to Job to answer before the court of heaven. "Oh that one might plead..." (AV) is perhaps Job returning to his recognition that his desire for this 'pleader', this "umpire", is just fantasy. He actually didn't have such a person in Heaven. But we do... in the Lord Jesus. Job dreamed of an advocate who could plead with God for him, as a man pleads for his neighbour / friend. And indeed, what a friend we have in Jesus... He pleads for us because we are His friends. "I say to you my friends... You are my friends... No longer do I call you servants... but I have called you friends" (Lk. 12:4; Jn. 15:14,15).
Job 16:22 For when a few years have come, I shall go the way of no return-
This may be a purposeful challenge to the statements of Eliphaz in the
previous chapter, that Job is about to be smitten with death at any
moment. Job instead gives himself a few years. We note that Job directly
engages with the words of the friends, whereas they attack him in terms of
vague generalities
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