Job 17:4

_FOR THOU HAST HID THEIR HEART FROM UNDERSTANDING: THEREFORE SHALT THOU NOT EXALT THEM._ Hid - withheld. THEIR HEART - the intellect of his friends. SHALT ... EXALT - rather, imperative, exalt them not. Allow them not to conquer (Umbreit). (Isaiah 6:9)...

1-9 Job reflects upon the harsh censures his friends had passed upon him, and, looking on himself as a dying man, he appeals to God. Our time is ending. It concerns us carefully to redeem the days of time, and to spend them in getting ready for eternity. We see the good use the righteous should make of Job's afflictions from God, from enemies, and from friends. Instead of being discouraged in the service of God, by the hard usage this faithful servant of God met with, they should be made bold to proceed and persevere therein. Those who keep their eye upon heaven as their end, will keep their feet in the paths of religion as their way, whatever difficulties and discouragements they may meet with....

Verse Job 17:4. _FOR THOU HAST HID THEIR HEART_] This address is to _God_; and here he is represented as _doing_ that which in the course of his providence he only _permits_ to be done. _SHALT THOU NOT EXALT THEM._] This was exactly fulfilled: not one of Job's friends was exalted; on the contrary, God condemned the whole; and they were not received into the Divine favour till Job sacrificed, and made intercession for them....

FOR THOU HAST HID THEIR HEART FROM UNDERSTANDING - That is, the heart of his professed friends. Job says that they were blind and perverse, and indisposed to render him justice; and he therefore pleads that he may carry his cause directly before God. He attributes their want of understanding to the agency of God in accordance with the doctrine which prevailed in early times, and which is so often expressed in the Scriptures, that God is the source of light and truth, and that when people are blinded it is in accordance with his wise purposes; see Isaiah 6:9. It is “because” they were thus blind and perverse, that he asks the privilege of carrying the cause at once up to God - and who could blame him for such a desire? THEREFORE THOU SHALT NOT EXALT THEM - By the honor of deciding a case like this, or by the reputation of

EXPOSITION JOB 17:1 The general character of this chapter has been considered in the introductory section to Job 16:1. It is occupied mainly with Job's complaints of his treatment by his friends, and his lamentations over his sufferings (verses 1-12). At the end he appeals to the grave, as the only hope or comfort left to him (verses 13-16). JOB 17:1 MY BREATH IS CORRUPT; or, _my spirit is oppressed. _But the physical meaning is the more probable one. A fetid breath is one of the surest signs of approaching dissolution. MY DAYS ARE EXTINCT; or, _cut off_. The verb used does not occur elsewhere. The graves are ready for me

FOR THOU HAST HID THEIR HEART FROM UNDERSTANDING,.... That is, the hearts of his friends, and therefore they were unfit to undertake his cause, or be sureties for him, or be judges in it. It is the same thing as to hide understanding from their hearts, which God sometimes does in a natural sense; when men like not the knowledge of him, as attainable by the light of nature, he gives them up to reprobate minds, minds void of knowledge and judgment in things natural; and sometimes, in a spiritual sense, he hides men's hearts from the knowledge of things divine and evangelical, and even this he does from the wise and prudent of this world; yea, sometimes he hides the knowledge of his providential dealings with men from his own people, as he did from Asaph, Jeremiah, Habakkuk, and others; and, as it seems, from Job's friends, who therefore mistook his case, and were very unfit and insufficien...

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 16:22 TO JOB 17:16. Job pleads in favour of his prayer for Divine vindication, that death is before him and he has no hope, if he must now die. JOB 17:2 is obscure; the general sense seems to be that Job complains of the delusive hopes, held out by the friends, of return to health and prosperity (Peake). Job 17:3 continues the idea of Job 16:20 f. God, as Job's advocate, is to give to God as his creditor a pledge that He will in the future vindicate him. Who else will strike hands with Job over such a bargain?...

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

4. Yet his condition is such that his hope will soon go with him to the grave. (Job 17:1-16) TEXT 17:1-16 My spirit is consumed, my days are extinct, The grave is _ready_ for me. 2 Surely there are mockers with me, And mine eye dwelleth upon their provocation. 3 Give now a pledge, be surety for me with thy self; Who is there that will strike hands with me? 4 For thou hast hid their heart from understanding: Therefore shalt thou not exalt _them._ 5 He that denounceth his friends for a prey, Even the eyes of his children shall fail. 6 But he hath made me a byword of the people; And they spit in my face. 7 Mine eye also is dim my reason of sorrow, And all my members are as a shadow. 8 Upright men shall be astonished at this, And the innocent shall stir up himself against the godless....