Job 36:16

The words even soconnect Job's case with the general principles in regard to suffering just inculcated by Elihu. The figures of "straitness" and "broad place" are usual for affliction and prosperity, cf. ch. Job 18:7. The figure of a plenteous table is also common, Psalms 23:5. The speaker does not say by what means God is alluring the sufferer out of the mouth or jaws of distress into a broad place. He means probably the disciplining effects of the distress itself, unless the "distress" here refer to a future, greater evil, from which Job's present affliction is designed to save him. Comp., however, ch. Job 33:14-28.