Job 17

Notes

My spirit is maimed, broken, and confounded with trouble; and my breath stinks, as in dying persons: the days of my life are thunderstruck, shortened, and debased: nothing but the grave remains for me. 2. O God, do not my friends bitterly mock and deride me as a wicked hypocrite? And does not my mind so dwell and pore on their proud, insolent, and exasperating speeches that I cannot sleep nor mine eyes refrain from tears? 3. Come then, give me undoubted assurance that thou wilt take my cause in hand and do me justice; or give me an impartial man like myself, who in thy stead shall debate the matter with me. 4. For as for these my friends, thou hast withheld from them a common capacity to understand thy providential dispensations, therefore they can never be honoured to judge my plea. 5. He who flatters friends in their wickedness because of their prosperity, or who manifestly makes a prey of them, his posterity shall pine away in disappointment and misery. 6. Alas! both God and my friends now combine to expose me to the common contempt of the people, though lately I was their darling and the matter of their praise. 7. My eyes are rendered dim, and my mind stupified with grief, and my body is wasted to a skeleton. 8. Upright saints in after-times shall be astonished at the sovereign dispensations of God, and the cruel abuse of my friends, with respect to me; and shall be excited to the utmost detestation of hypocrites who uncharitably censure the afflicted. 9. And, notwithstanding every scandal or discouragement, persons truly righteous shall persevere in their course of piety and virtue, and become more and more confirmed and active in it. 10. And as for you, my friends, either repent of your rash censures, or examine my cause over again; for hitherto none of you have spoken to the point. 11. Whatever hopes you give me of recovering my wonted prosperity, I find I am a dying man, and all my designs, even the most fixed and dear, are at an end. 12. My tormenting pains and anxious thoughts keep me awake through the whole night; or if I get any moments of ease, it is but little and soon over. 13. I expect, I wait for nothing now but an entrance into the state of the dead; and I have prepared for and expect speedily to lie down in the grave. 14. In the form of my trouble, and in the exercise of my mind, I have contracted a relation to and familiarity with death, corruption, and worms. 15. The future prosperity with which you attempt to flatter me, and the temporal happiness you would have me expect, are a mere imagination. 16. These hopes shall quickly appear buried in the grave along with myself.

Ver. 1. [The graves are ready for me. The sepulchres of Edom are generally in extensive chambers, scooped out in the rocks. In these are numerous niches or shelves ready to receive the dead bodies. C.]

Ver. 3. ['Lay down now, be bondsman (or surety) for me with thyself; who else should furnish surety to me?'. This is a very remarkable passage. God is conceived of by Job in a double capacity; as a judge, who tries and condemns Job for his sins, and as a bondsman or surety, who takes the place of the guilty, and pledges himself for him. It would seem that Job was enabled by faith to look to Christ, the great Saviour and redeemer of the people. P.]

Ver. 5. [Not merely shall he be disappointed, but his children shall be ruined through his vain and unfulfilled expectations. C.]

Ver. 6. [Tabret. The translation of this word is diversified, according to the opinion entertained of its derivation. As it is, however, evident that Job is speaking of the present, and not of his past condition, we are disposed to adopt the translation of Tyndale, 'He hath made me a by-word of the common people. I am his jesting-stock among them.' Heath translates it prodigy, and Good translates it dotard. C.——'And I became as one in whose face they spit; that is, an utter abomination. The parallelism shows that this is the true meaning of the Hebrew word tophet. P.]

Ver. 13. [Job gives way to despair. His comforters had become tormentors. They had shown utter ignorance of his state, his sufferings, and his wants; and now he resigns himself to his fate:—'If I hope, it is for the grave as my house; in darkness I make my bed.' P.]

Ver. 16. [Job's only hope of relief is in death. He believes his disease to be incurable; his life is miserable; he longs for its close; and in the grave alone does he see rest from trial and sorrow. P.]

Reflections.—Happy are those who have spiritual breath which cannot corrupt; life that can never fail; who have their portion in eternal blessedness, and are ready for their grave! If cruel friends exasperate my spirit and drive sleep from mine eyes, let Jesus, as my surety and redeemer, be the ground of all my hope and the source of all my joys. God can easily infatuate the wisest when they abuse his gifts. And it is mad to pursue honour and advancements by sinful methods, particularly in employing the wisdom which he has given against his cause and interest. Vain is the inconstant applause of men. While we are great the world admire us; but when depressed and poor they contemn or abhor us. But though we see things in providence which we cannot account for, we must not stagger through unbelief. And if we are faithful to God we must be zealous for his cause and take part with his oppressed people, whose bitterest enemies are usually formal hypocrites. They who are through faith brought into the way, Jesus Christ, and a course of holiness, strive not to faint or fail; nay, even difficulties and opposition quicken them. Many great pretenders to wisdom can give no profitable instructions in a day of trial; and empty are the promises and vain the hopes of carnal minds. How debasing to proud men are death and the grave! And even good men are apt to despair of that which God really intends for them. Happy are they who rest in Christ here—they shall rest in death and in heaven for ever and ever!