Job 16

Notes

To this Job replied, 2. Thou hast but repeated the senseless and tormenting jargon which I had heard before. Instead of comforting, you plague, harass, and tempt me to despair. 3. When wilt thou make an end of such idle and impertinent discourse? What has instigated and emboldened thee to answer me in this censorious, scornful, and peremptory manner? 4. Were your condition and mine exchanged I could easily insult you with a multitude of words, and deride you in a grave or scornful manner. 5. I could furiously bear you down with my mouth, and restrain my lips from uttering a single sentence of consolation;—though I hope I should rather attempt to encourage, strengthen, and comfort you. 6. But now, indeed, whether I boldly defend my innocence and pour forth my complaints, or whether I forbear, my frightful sores and griefs are nothing eased. 7. This terrible trouble has quite tired me out, and made my life a burden to me. Thou, O God, hast, with thy thunderbolts and fiery tempest, utterly destroyed my large family and all that pertained to me. 8. While others murder my character and torment my spirit, thou, by plagues and griefs, hast so wasted and disfigured my body that it testifies my great affliction, and is employed against me as a witness of my great wickedness. 9. Meanwhile my pretended friends, who indeed implacably hate me, tear my reputation and torment my spirit with their speeches. They reproach me in the most spiteful and outrageous manner; and while their eyes sparkle with anger, they cruelly set themselves to spy out every, even the least, occasion to calumniate me. 10. They behave like wild beasts, gaping to devour or deride me; they treat me with the most cruel and abusive scorn and contempt; they have met together to satisfy their infernal malice in tormenting me. 11. And God hath quite abandoned me, chained me up, and dreadfully cast me down into the hands of these and other wicked men, to be abused by them as they please. 12. Great was my former happiness and prosperity; but now God has trodden and bruised me in the press of his wrath, and made me, as it were, to boil over with dregs of trouble and desperate complaints. In the most tormenting manner he has ruined my soul, illegible body, my children, and all that I had: he has set illegible up as a distinguished butt of his fearful indignation. 13.? Devils, wicked men, calamities and diseases, as the instruments of his judgment, compass me round about. Without mercy he torments me with the most exquisite pains in my body, anguish of mind, and terrors of conscience. 14. As a battering-ram he breaks through me with breach upon breach, still adding one dreadful plague to another: he furiously rushes upon me with the almighty force of his wrath, which I can by no means withstand or support. 15. The sackcloth I had put on all over my body, to mark my deep mourning and humiliation under his mighty hand, sticks to my ulcers; and exhausted with wounds of trouble, I have sat down on this dunghill, where all my former authority and honour are changed into contempt. 16. My face is terribly burned and tormented with trickling tears; and the very substance of my eyes is almost consumed with weeping, so that I look like one dead and rotting; 17. Although I was never a violent oppressor of men, or a hypocritical worshipper of God. 18. O earth, if I have been guilty of bloodshed or oppression, conceal it not: let the dogs lick my blood when I am dead, and let neither God nor men regard my complaints or cries for pity while I am alive! 19. But what need these imprecations when even now the all-seeing God, who dwells in the lofty regions of heaven, is the ear and the eye witness of my virtue and true piety! 20. My companions mock and scoff at me as a hypocrite; but my soul, with floods of tears, earnestly appeals to God and begs, 21. That he would thoroughly and clearly examine my cause, and give a decision between me and my reproaching friends; 22. Since, if it be not done quickly, my troubles will soon make an end of me, and then it will be too late.

Ver. 4. [It is worthy of remark that this signal of contempt was used against our Lord upon the cross, Mat. 27. 39; Mar. 15. 39. But like all other visible signs of thought or feeling, it may have various significations, but usually those of doubt, sorrow, dissatisfaction, or scorn. C.——Job's anger is now kindled by the reproaches and false accusations of his 'vexatious comforters.' He shows his anger in his bitter and passionate retort. His anger not only leads him to sinful excess in replying to his assailants, but even to assume something like a tone of irreverence toward God. P.]

Ver. 7. [Turning from his accusers Job here directs his words to God, whom he regards as the cause of all his sufferings. It is now painful to hear Job's repinings and complaints. P.]

Ver. 15. [Horn. The horn of an animal is often both its defence and ornament. Hence the horn has been employed in Scripture as the emblem of power and glory, De. 33. 17; Ps. 132. 17. Job's losses, though great, had still left him the possession of his lands; but he had laid down all his emblems of authority, and humbled himself in the dust. C.]

Ver. 18. [These are words of deep pathos and great power. Yet they show that Job was not yet conscious of his true state as a sinner. He dares even to appeal to Heaven for a testimony of his innocence, and consequently, to some extent, of the injustice dealt out to him. His faith, however, has not yet deserted him. For life he has no hope, but he looks beyond it. P.]

Reflections.—Often much is said, and yet nothing to the purpose: and miserable comforters to a wounded spirit are all duties, all friends, if God continue his frowns! Nothing but Jesus' blood—nothing but Jehovah's mercy—can grant any solid relief. Nay, alas! men are often most cruel and harsh when they ought to be most tender and compassionate: and those who riot in prosperity and ease seldom lay much to heart the case of their extremely distressed brethren. But though complicated and terrible are the troubles of saints in this world, unspeakably more so are the troubles of the wicked in hell, where there is nothing but remorse—but torment in all its horror! Happy are they who are here purged in God's furnace! They sow in tears, but shall reap in joy. And however hard it be to bring down their mind to their lot, the testimony of their good conscience, sprinkled with Jesus' blood, shall comfort them now. They have a good God to appeal to as their judge and friend. Their tears shall be put into his bottle and marked in his book; and death, but destitute of its sting, shall soon set the prisoners free into a glorious eternity.