Job
Chapter 16
Job’s Response to Eliphaz
Then Job answered:
I have heard many such things. What miserable comforters you are!
When will your empty words end? What’s wrong with you that you keep arguing?
I could talk like you do, if you were in my place; I could speak out against you and shake my head at you.
I could give you strength and comfort you with words.
But if I talk, my pain doesn’t get any better; if I stay silent, it still doesn’t go away.
I am disturbed by such malice;
an evil force takes hold of me. They stand to testify against me; and answer me with slanders.
They assail me with fury and gnash their teeth at me; my enemies lord it over me.
With open mouths, they jeer at me; they strike my cheek, and together they crowd around me.
God has handed me over to sinners and thrown me into the hands of the wicked.
Everything was fine until he shattered me, but he grabbed me and tore me apart. He set me up as a target,
aiming his arrows at me, striking from all sides, spearing my sides mercilessly, and spilling my gall onto the ground.
Like a warrior he bears down on me, thrusting me unceasingly.
I have wrapped sackcloth around my skin and bowed my head in the dust.
My face is flushed with tears, and deep shadows surround my eyes;
yet, my hands are innocent of violence, and my prayers are genuine.
O earth, do not hide my blood; let my cry be heard!
Even now, my witness is in heaven, and my defender is on high.
My prayers have ascended to God as I have poured out my tears before him.
I wish someone could argue with God as he does with His friends.
My days are numbered, and soon I will travel the road that leads to no return.
Commentaries
Job’s Response to Eliphaz.
Job becomes impatient and wishes his friends were in his place so he could return their treatment. His thoughts often drift between heaven and earth, speaking to either God or his friends. Job responds not with repentance but with expressions of pain and sorrow (16:15; cf. 1:20), like someone sensing death is near (16:18-17:2). An Old Testament belief held that the blood of an innocent victim cried out from the ground for justice—for example, Abel’s blood (Gn 4:10). Job hopes that after his lips are sealed in death, his blood will still cry out. Once seeking an arbitrator between himself and God, now he longs for a witness or intercessor above (16:19), likely a member of the heavenly Council who, unlike Satan, will intercede for him. Feeling forgotten, alone, and mocked, his thoughts turn to death (17:11-16), as depicted through bleak images: the land of the dead (17:13-16), darkness (17:13), decay and worms (17:14), and dust (17:16).