Job 16:9

_HE TEARETH ME IN HIS WRATH, WHO HATETH ME: HE GNASHETH UPON ME WITH HIS TEETH; MINE ENEMY SHARPENETH HIS EYES UPON ME._ Image from a wild beast. So God is represented (Job 10:16). WHO HATETH ME - rather, 'and pursues me hard, or in a hostile manner.' Job would not ascribe 'hatred' to God (Psalms 50:22, "Consider this, ye that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces"). MINE ENEMY - rather, he sharpens, etc., 'as an enemy' (Psalms 7:12). Darts wrathful glances at me, like a foe (Job 13:24. "Thou holdest me for thine enemy")....

6-16 Here is a doleful representation of Job's grievances. What reason we have to bless God, that we are not making such complaints! Even good men, when in great troubles, have much ado not to entertain hard thoughts of God. Eliphaz had represented Job as unhumbled under his affliction: No, says Job, I know better things; the dust is now the fittest place for me. In this he reminds us of Christ, who was a man of sorrows, and pronounced those blessed that mourn, for they shall be comforted....

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 _Satan_ to _show_ himself to Job, and the _horrible_ form which he and his _demons_ assumed increased the misery under which Job had already suffered so much. All the expressions, from this to the end of the _fourteenth_ verse, may be easily understood on this principle; e.g., Job 16:9: "He (_Satan_) gnasheth upon me with his teeth; mine enemy sharpeneth his eyes upon me." Job 16:10: "They ...

HE TEARETH ME IN HIS WRATH - The language here is all taken from the ferocity of wild beasts; and the idea is, that his enemy had come upon him as a lion seizes upon its prey. Rosenmuller, Reiske, and some others suppose that this refers to God. Cocceius refers it to Satan. Schultens, Dr. Good, and some others, to Eliphaz, as the leading man among his adversaries. I have no doubt that this is the true reference. The connection seems to demand this; and we ought not to suppose that Job would charge this upon God, unless there is the clearest evidence. The whole passage is a description of the manner in which Job supposed his friends had come upon him. He says they had attacked him like wild beasts. Yet it must be admitted that he sometimes attributes these feelings to God, and says that he came upon him like a roaring lion see Job 10:16....

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...

HE TEARETH [ME] IN HIS WRATH, WHO HATETH ME,.... By whom is meant not Satan, as Jarchi, though he is an enemy to, and an hater of mankind, especially of good men; nor Eliphaz, as others, who had fallen upon Job with a great deal of wrath and fury, tearing his character in pieces, which Job attributed to his hatred of him; but it rather appears from the context that God himself is intended, of whom Job had now a mistaken notion and apprehension; taking him for his enemy, being treated by him, as he thought, as if he had an aversion to him, and an hatred of him; whereas God hates none of his creatures, being his offspring, and the objects of his tender care, and providential regard: indeed sin is hateful to him, and makes men odious in his sight, and he hates all the workers of iniquity, and those whom he passed by, when he chose others; though they are said to be hated by him as Esau was,...

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 16:6 contain a bitter complaint of God's ferocity against Job, in spite of his innocence. The connexion of Job 16:6 with the context is not clear: RV translation is probably, however, correct. With Job 16:7 the enumeration of God's unkindness begins. Davidson explains the change from he to thou by the rise of emotion. God has such hold on Job (Job 16:8) by afflicting him. Job 16:9 compares His onslaught to that of a wild beast. Job 16:10 f. speaks of the hostility of men, not Job's frien

Job realizes to himself his new condition: God and men combine to pursue him with their enmity, though he is innocent of all wrong In Job 16:5 Job flung back with scorn the "comforts of God" which the friends proffered him. And now there seems to occur a pause, and the excited sufferer looks about him and realizes both the extremity of the evil in which he is held, and the new and unexpected trial, added to all others, of the judgment of men being against him. And he hardly knows whether he shall speak or be silent, so overcome is he and so unavailing to help him or make men judge truly of him are both speech and silence _if I speak my grief is not assuaged, and if I forbear what am I eased? Job 16:6_. Yet this new condition in which he realizes that he is, which makes speech useless, forces him to speak, and he

HE TEARETH ME IN HIS WRATH, &C.— _His fury rend-eth me, and he teareth me to pieces._ Heath; who remarks, that the metaphor is taken from a beast of prey, who rends and tears his booty in pieces; and the same metaphor is carried on through the whole. See Psalms 35:16; Psalms 37:12.Lamentations 2:16....