Job 16:18

_O EARTH, COVER NOT THOU MY BLOOD, AND LET MY CRY HAVE NO PLACE._ Inasmuch as Job is persuaded he shall soon die, he desires that his innocence, which is called in question while he is alive, may be at least acknowledged when he is dead. MY BLOOD - i:e., my undeserved suffering. He compares himself to one murdered, whose blood the earth refuses to drink up until he is avenged (Genesis 4:10; Ezekiel 24:1; Ezekiel 24:8; Isaiah 26:21). The Arabs say that the dew of heaven will not descend on a spot watered with innocent blood (cf. 2

17-22 Job's condition was very deplorable; but he had the testimony of his conscience for him, that he never allowed himself in any gross sin. No one was ever more ready to acknowledge sins of infirmity. Eliphaz had charged him with hypocrisy in religion, but he specifies prayer, the great act of religion, and professes that in this he was pure, though not from all infirmity. He had a God to go to, who he doubted not took full notice of all his sorrows. Those who pour out tears before God, though they cannot plead for themselves, by reason of their defects, have a Friend to plead for them, even the Son of man, and on him we must ground all our hopes of acceptance with God. To die, is to go the way whence we shall not return. We must all of us, very certainly, and very shortly, go this journey. Should not then the Saviour be precious to our souls? And ought we not to be ready to obey and...

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 therefore calls for vengeance. Let my blood cry against my murderers, as the blood of Abel cried against Cain. My innocent life is taken away by violence, as his innocent life was; as therefore the _earth_ was not permitted _to cover his blood_, so that his murderer should be concealed, let my death be avenged in the same way. 2. It has been supposed that the passage means that Job considered himself accused of shedding innocent blood; and, conscious of his own perfect innocence, he prays that the earth may not cover any blood shed by him. Thus Mr. Scott

O EARTH - Passionate appeals to the earth are not uncommon in the Scriptures; see the notes at Isaiah 1:2. Such appeals indicate deep emotion, and are among the most animated forms of personification. COVER NOT THOU MY BLOOD - Blood here seems to denote the wrong done to him. He compares his situation with that of one who had been murdered, and calls on the earth not to conceal the crime, and prays that his injuries may not be hidden, or pass unavenged. Aben Ezra, Dr. Good, and some others, however, suppose that he refers to blood shed “by” him, and that the idea is, that he would have the earth reveal any blood if he had ever shed any; or in other words, that it is a strong protestation of his innocence. But the former interpretation seems to accord best with the connection. It is the exclamation of deep feeling. He speaks

EXPOSITION Job answers the second speech of Eliphaz in a discourse which occupies two (short) chapters, and is thus not much more lengthy than the speech of his antagonist. His tone is very despairing. He finds no help at all in the speeches of the "comforters" (verses 2-6), and turns from them to consider once more the dealings of God with him (verses 7-14). Next, he describes his own proceedings under his afflictions, and appeals to earth and. heaven, and God in heaven, to take up his cause and help him (verses 15-22). In Job 17:1. he continues much in the same-strain, but with an intermixture of the topics, which is somewhat confusing. In Job 17:1, Job 17:2 he bewails himself; in...

O EARTH, COVER NOT THOU MY BLOOD,.... This is an imprecation, wishing that if; he had been guilty of any capital crime, of such acts of injustice that he ought to be punished by the judge, and even to die for them, that his blood when spilt might not be received into the earth, but be licked up by dogs, or that he might have no burial or interment in the earth; and if he had committed such sins as might come under the name of blood, either the shedding of innocent blood, though that is so gross a crime that it can hardly be thought that Job's friends even suspected this of him; or rather other foul sins, as injustice and oppression of the poor; the Tigurine version is, "my capital sins", see Isaiah 1:15; then he wishes they might never be covered and concealed, but disclosed and spread abroad everywhere, that all might know them, and he suffer shame for them; even as the earth discloses...

CHAPTER S 16-17 JOB'S REPLY TO ELIPHAZ _ 1. Miserable comforters are ye all (Job 16:1)_ 2. Oh God! Thou hast done it! (Job 16:6) 3. Yet I look to Thee (Job 16:15) 4. Trouble upon trouble; self-pity (Job 17:1) 5. Where is now my hope? (Job 17:13) Job 16:1. How masterfully he meets their wrong accusations and how he brings forth his suffering afresh, yet always with that horrible nightmare, God is not for me, but against me! Such things Eliphaz spoke he had h

Job cries to the avenger of blood to avenge his innocence. He is a martyr, and feels that his blood must cry for vengeance (Genesis 4:10 *, Revelation 6:10). Job arrives at the astounding thought that God will be his avenger, though it is God that slays him. We have noticed how in Job's bitter complaint against God, the thought that the God, who had loved him in the past, will one day turn to him once more, had again and again broken through (Job 7:8; Job 7:21; Job 14:13). Job now sets the God of the past and the future against the God of the present, one side of God against anothe

O. Figure of speech _Ecphonesis._ App-6. COVER NOT. MY BLOOD. The reference is to the practice which remains to this day, based on Numbers 35:33.Leviticus 17:13. Job's desire is that the evidence of his sufferings may not be hidden....

God's destructive enmity will bring Job to death, though there is no wrong in his hands and his prayer is pure (Job 16:17). This feeling makes him appeal to the earth not to cover his innocent blood. He shall die, but it is an unjust death, and his blood shall lie on the bosom of the earth open, appealing to heaven for vindication, and uttering an unceasing cry for justice. _let my cry have no place_ i. e. no resting place, where it should cease and be dumb and penetrate no further. His "cry" is his cry for reparation, as in Genesis 4:10 "The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground." His "blood" is, of course, a figure; it does not imply actual bloodshed, but merely a wrongful death; but it cannot mean anything short of death, because the figure is taken from a violent death. The word is use