Job 16:22

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 death every hour. The next verse, the first of the following chapter, should come in here:

My breath is corrupt, c.] He felt himself as in the arms of death: he saw the grave as already digged which was to receive his dead body. This verse shows that our translation of the twenty-second verse is improper, and vindicates Mr. Good's version.

I HAVE said on Job 16:9 that a part of Job's sufferings probably arose from appalling representations made to his eye or to his imagination by Satan and his agents. I think this neither irrational nor improbable. That he and his demons have power to make themselves manifest on especial occasions, has been credited in all ages of the world not by the weak, credulous, and superstitious only, but also by the wisest, the most learned, and the best of men. I am persuaded that many passages in the Book of Job refer to this, and admit of an easy interpretation on this ground.