Job 16

Then Job answered:

1Then Job answered and said,

2"I have heard plenty of talk like this. You are all miserable comforters.

2I have heard many such things: miserable comforters are ye all.

NoteJob is replying to his three friends, who came to sit with him in his suffering. In this culture visiting and consoling a mourner was a recognized social duty, so calling them "comforters" who are miserable at the job turns their own role against them.

3Will these empty words ever end? What stirs you up so that you keep answering?

3Shall vain words have an end? or what emboldeneth thee that thou answerest?

4I could talk the way you do, if you were in my place. I could pile up words against you and shake my head at you.

4I also could speak as ye do: if your soul were in my soul’s stead, I could heap up words against you, and shake mine head at you.

NoteShaking the head at someone was a gesture of scorn and gloating in the ancient Near East, not sympathy or disagreement, the equivalent of a jeer.

5But instead I would use my mouth to strengthen you, and the comfort of my words would ease your grief.

5But I would strengthen you with my mouth, and the moving of my lips should asswage your grief.

6If I speak, my pain is not eased. And if I hold back and say nothing, the pain does not leave me either.

6Though I speak, my grief is not asswaged: and though I forbear, what am I eased?

7But now God has worn me out. You have wiped out everyone close to me.

7But now he hath made me weary: thou hast made desolate all my company.

NoteJob switches here from speaking about God ("he") to speaking directly to God ("you"), and keeps addressing him through the next verse. The Hebrew makes the same abrupt shift; it is not an error.

8You have made me shrivel up, and that stands as a witness against me. My thin, wasted body rises up and testifies against me to my face.

8And thou hast filled me with wrinkles, which is a witness against me: and my leanness rising up in me beareth witness to my face.

NoteThe Hebrew verb behind "made me shrivel up" can also mean "seized" or "bound" me, and translators divide over which is meant. Either way the point is that his ruined body is being treated as evidence: legal language (witness, testify, advocate, plead a case) runs through this whole chapter, as though Job were in a courtroom.

9In his anger he tears at me and hates me. He grinds his teeth at me. My enemy fixes sharp eyes on me.

9He teareth me in his wrath, who hateth me: he gnasheth upon me with his teeth; mine enemy sharpeneth his eyes upon me.

NoteGrinding or gnashing the teeth was a stock image of open rage and hostility, often described of a predator; the picture is of an attacker, not of someone merely annoyed.

10People open their mouths wide at me. They slap my cheek to insult me. They gather together against me.

10They have gaped upon me with their mouth; they have smitten me upon the cheek reproachfully; they have gathered themselves together against me.

NoteTwo distinct hostile acts. Opening the mouth wide is the gape of a beast about to devour, or of a crowd howling abuse. Striking someone on the cheek was a calculated public humiliation rather than an ordinary blow, an insult so serious that later Israelite law treated it as an offense in its own right.

11God has handed me over to godless men and thrown me into the hands of the wicked.

11God hath delivered me to the ungodly, and turned me over into the hands of the wicked.

12I was living at ease, but he broke me apart. He grabbed me by the neck and shook me to pieces. He set me up as his target.

12I was at ease, but he hath broken me asunder: he hath also taken me by my neck, and shaken me to pieces, and set me up for his mark.

Note"Target" is literally an archer's mark. From here to verse 14 Job describes God as a besieging army: first a bowman setting up his aim, then troops, then a breached wall.

13His archers surround me. He cuts my kidneys open and shows no mercy. He pours my gall out on the ground.

13His archers compass me round about, he cleaveth my reins asunder, and doth not spare; he poureth out my gall upon the ground.

NoteThe King James "reins" means the kidneys. Hebrew thought located a person's deepest feelings and inmost self in the kidneys, so a wound there is both mortal and intimate. "Gall" is bile from the gall bladder; a spilled gall bladder was a stock description of a fatal wound.

14He breaks through me again and again, wound after wound. He charges at me like a warrior.

14He breaketh me with breach upon breach, he runneth upon me like a giant.

Note"Breach" is a siege term: the gap smashed through a city wall. Job pictures God assaulting him the way an army breaks through a wall again and again. The King James "giant" translates a word meaning a champion or mighty warrior, not a creature of unusual size.

15I have sewn rough sackcloth over my skin, and I have buried my horn in the dust.

15I have sewed sackcloth upon my skin, and defiled my horn in the dust.

NoteSackcloth was coarse cloth of goat or camel hair, worn next to the skin as a sign of mourning or grief. Sewing it onto the skin, rather than putting it on and taking it off, suggests mourning that has become permanent. A "horn", from the horn of a bull or ram, was the standard image for a person's strength and standing; to put one's horn in the dust is to have all dignity and power brought to the ground.

16My face is red and swollen from crying, and deep shadows lie on my eyelids,

16My face is foul with weeping, and on my eyelids is the shadow of death;

NoteThe Hebrew phrase behind "deep shadows" is the same one the King James elsewhere renders "the shadow of death." It means thick darkness or gloom, and here describes the discolouring around the eyes of someone who has wept for a long time.

17even though my hands have done no violence and my prayer is pure.

17Not for any injustice in mine hands: also my prayer is pure.

Note"My hands have done no violence" is a formal declaration of innocence, the kind a person would make to clear himself of a charge. Job is not claiming to be sinless in general; he is denying the specific crime his friends assume he must have committed.

18Earth, do not cover my blood, and do not let my cry for help be laid to rest.

18O earth, cover not thou my blood, and let my cry have no place.

NoteBlood that had been shed but not covered over was believed to cry out for justice until the killing was answered for, the idea behind Abel's blood crying from the ground in Genesis. Job asks the earth not to soak his blood away, so that his death will stand as an unanswered accusation. "Let my cry have no place" means: let it never be given a resting place, never be allowed to fall silent.

19Even now, look: my witness is in heaven, and the one who speaks for me is on high.

19Also now, behold, my witness is in heaven, and my record is on high.

NoteThe King James "record" here means a witness, someone who testifies, not a written document. Job is asking for a second witness in the heavenly court to back up his claim, alongside the accusing testimony of his own body in verse 8.

20My friends make fun of me, while my eyes pour out tears to God.

20My friends scorn me: but mine eye poureth out tears unto God.

NoteThe Hebrew of the first half of this verse is genuinely uncertain. The word rendered "scoffers" can also mean spokesmen or interpreters, so the line has been read both as "my friends mock me" and as "my friends are my go-betweens", and possibly it plays on both.

21If only someone could argue a person's case with God, the way one person argues for a neighbor.

21O that one might plead for a man with God, as a man pleadeth for his neighbour!

Note"Plead" means to argue a legal case on someone's behalf, as an advocate or an arbitrator would. Job wants someone to do for him with God what a neighbor would do for a neighbor in a local dispute.

22For when only a few years have passed, I will go the way from which I will not return."

22When a few years are come, then I shall go the way whence I shall not return.

Note"The way from which I will not return" is the road to the realm of the dead, Sheol, in Hebrew thought the shadowy place all the dead go, from which no one comes back.