Job 16:21

_O THAT ONE MIGHT PLEAD FOR A MAN WITH GOD, AS A MAN PLEADETH FOR HIS NEIGHBOUR!_ One - rather, He (God). 'O that, he would plead for a man (namely me) against God.' Job quaintly says, God must support me against God; for He makes me to suffer, and He alone knows me to be innocent (Umbreit). So God helped Jacob in wrestling against Himself (Job 23:6; Genesis 32:25). God in Jesus Christ does plead with God for man (Romans 8:26, "The Spirit itself maketh intercession for us ... And He that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because He maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God;" cf. Hebrews

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 16:21. _O THAT ONE MIGHT PLEAD_] Let me only have liberty to plead with God, as a man hath with his fellow....

OH THAT ONE MIGHT PLEAD FOR A MAN - A more correct rendering of this would be, “Oh that it might be for a man to contend with God;” that is, in a judicial controversy. It is the expression of an earnest desire to carry his cause at once before God, and to be permitted to argue it there. This desire Job had often expressed; see Job 13:3, note; Job 13:18, notes. On the grammatical construction of the passage, see Rosenmuller. AS A MAN PLEADETH FOR HIS NEIGHBOUR - Hebrew “the son of man;” that is, the offspring of man. Or, rather, as a man contendeth with his neighbor; as one man may carry on a cause with another. He desired to carry his cause directly before God, and to be permitted to argue the case with him, as one is permitted to maintain an arg

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...

OH THAT ONE MIGHT PLEAD FOR A MAN WITH GOD,.... That is, that one might be appointed and allowed to plead with God on his account; or that he be admitted to plead with God for himself; or however, that there might be a hearing of his case before God, and that he would decide the thing in controversy between him and his friends, when he doubted not but it would be given on his side: AS A MAN [PLEADETH] FOR HIS NEIGHBOUR; using great freedom, and powerful arguments, and having no dread of the judge, nor fear of carrying the cause for his neighbour; so Job wishes, that either one for him, or he himself, might be freed from the dread of the divine Majesty, and might be suffered to speak as freely to his case as a counsellor at the bar does for his client. The words will admit of a more evangelic sense by observing that God, to whom Job says his eye poured out tears, at the close of Job

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

MAN. strong man. Hebrew. _geber._ App-14. MAN. son of man. Hebrew. _ben-'adam._ App-14....

Job 16:18 to Job 17:9. Job, dying a martyr's death, beseeches God that He would uphold his right with God and against men, and give him a pledge that He will make his innocence appear In Job 16:12 Job described the terrible hostility of God, who dashed him to pieces, laid him in ruins and poured out his soul to the ground brought him unto death. Then the other thought rose in his mind that all this befell him though he was innocent both in life and in spirit. Here he comes to the point at which he always loses self-control when he realizes that in spite of his innocence he is held guilty. This is an overwhelming feeling, and under it Job either wildly challenges the rectitude of God, as in the first cycle of speeches; or he flings off from him