CHAPTER XVI _Job replies to Eliphaz, and through him to all his friends,_ _who, instead of comforting him, had added to his misfortunes;_ _and shows that, had they been in his circumstances, he would_ _have treated them in a different manner_, 1-5. _Enters into an affecting detail of his suffer... [ Continue Reading ]
Verse Job 16:2. _I HAVE HEARD MANY SUCH THINGS_] These sayings of the ancients are not strange to me; but they do not apply to my case: ye see me in affliction; ye should endeavour to console me. This ye do not; and yet ye pretend to do it! _Miserable comforters_ are _ye all_.... [ Continue Reading ]
Verse Job 16:3. _VAIN WORDS_] Literally, _words of air_. _WHAT EMBOLDENETH THEE_] Thou art totally ignorant of the business; what then can induce thee to take part in this discussion?... [ Continue Reading ]
Verse Job 16:4. _I ALSO COULD SPEAK_] It is probably better to render some of these _permissives_ or _potential verbs_ literally in the _future tense_, as in the Hebrew: _I also WILL speak_. Mr. _Good_ has adopted this mode. _IF YOUR SOUL WERE IN MY SOUL'S STEAD_] If you were in my place, I also co... [ Continue Reading ]
Verse Job 16:5. _I WOULD STRENGTHEN YOU WITH MY MOUTH_] Mr. _Good_ translates thus: - "With my own mouth will I overpower you, Till the quivering of my lips shall fail;" for which rendering he contends in his learned notes. This translation is countenanced by the _Septuagint, Syriac_, and _Arabic... [ Continue Reading ]
Verse Job 16:6. _THOUGH I SPEAK_] But it will be of no avail thus to speak; for reprehensions of _your_ conduct will not serve to mitigate _my_ sufferings.... [ Continue Reading ]
Verse Job 16:7. _BUT NOW HE HATH MADE ME WEARY_] The _Vulgate_ translates thus: - _Nunc autem oppressit me dolor meus; et in nihilum redacti_ _sunt omnes artus mei_; "But now my grief oppresses me, and all my joints are reduced to nothing." Perhaps Job alluded here to his _own afflictions_, and the... [ Continue Reading ]
Verse Job 16:8. _THOU HAST FILLED ME WITH WRINKLES_] If Job's disease were the _elephantiasis_, in which the whole skin is _wrinkled_ as the skin of the _elephant_, from which this species of leprosy has taken its name, these words would apply most forcibly to it; but the whole passage, through its... [ Continue Reading ]
Verse Job 16:9. _HE TEARETH_ ME _IN HIS WRATH_] Who the person is that is spoken of in this verse, and onward to the end of the _fourteenth_, has been a question on which commentators have greatly differed. Some think God, others Eliphaz, is intended: I think _neither_. Probably God permitted _Sata... [ Continue Reading ]
Verse Job 16:13. _HIS ARCHERS COMPASS ME_] רביו _rabbaiv_ "his great ones." The _Vulgate_ and _Septuagint_ translate this _his spears_; the _Syriac, Arabic_, and _Chaldee, his arrows_. On this and the following verse Mr. _Heath_ observes: "The metaphor is here taken from huntsmen: first, they surrou... [ Continue Reading ]
Verse Job 16:15. _I HAVE SEWED SACKCLOTH_] שק _sak_, a word that has passed into almost all languages, as I have already had occasion to notice in other parts of this work. _DEFILED MY HORN IN THE DUST._] The _horn_ was an emblem of _power_; and the metaphor was originally taken from beasts, such... [ Continue Reading ]
Verse Job 16:16. _ON MY EYELIDS_ IS _THE SHADOW OF DEATH_] Death is now _fast approaching_ me; already his _shadow_ is projected over me.... [ Continue Reading ]
Verse Job 16:17. _NOT FOR_ ANY _INJUSTICE_] I must assert, even with my last breath, that the charges of my friends against me are groundless. I am afflicted unto death, but not on account of my iniquities. _ALSO MY PRAYER_ IS _PURE._] I am no hypocrite, God knoweth.... [ Continue Reading ]
Verse Job 16:18. _O EARTH, COVER NOT THOU MY BLOOD_] This is evidently an allusion to the murder of Abel, and the verse has been understood in _two_ different ways: 1. Job here calls for justice against his destroyers. His _blood_ is his _life_, which he considers as taken away by _violence_, and t... [ Continue Reading ]
Verse Job 16:19. _MY WITNESS_ IS _IN HEAVEN_] I appeal to God for my innocence.... [ Continue Reading ]
Verse Job 16:20. _MY FRIENDS SCORN ME_] They deride and insult me, but my eye is towards God; I look to him to vindicate my cause.... [ Continue Reading ]
Verse Job 16:21. _O THAT ONE MIGHT PLEAD_] Let me only have liberty to plead with God, as a man hath with his fellow.... [ Continue Reading ]
Verse Job 16:22. _WHEN A FEW YEARS ARE COME_] I prefer Mr. _Good's_ version: - "But the years numbered to me are come. And I must go the way whence I shall not return." Job could not, in his present circumstances, expect _a few years_ _of longer life_; from his own conviction he was expecting dea... [ Continue Reading ]