Job 16 · The Lantern

Job Decries His Comforters

And Job answered and said:

Since Eliphaz speaks so, as if the matter were of extraordinary importance, and talks as if his speech derived from the wisdom of the ancestors, Job also resumes the argument he had used at the beginning. Is what you say not evident, he says?

You are "comforters" but very wicked ones. No word of yours is for the good, but they are all for the bad. You teach, you give advice, and you propose not how ordeals must be avoided, but how [new] ordeals will be obtained from affliction! [You do not teach] how a storm must be abated but how harmful agitations can be raised from peace.

Eliphaz had spoken harshly against Job in his answer, and so Job accuses him of unfitting consolation in the beginning of his speech. First, because both he and his friends frequently repeat the same things and so he says, "I have often heard such things," as if to say: Your speech is always about the same subject.

I have heard many things like these. Comforters of trouble are you all.

Is there an end to windy words? Or what provokes you, that you answer?

Job has phrased this in the form of a question and not in order to look for an argument. This means "Will I really join words together against you? Or will I really shake my head at you? Not at all!

Ver.3. Shall windy words have an end? For those are 'windy words,' which serve the end of temporal inflating, rather than the end of righteousness. Now oftentimes the wicked speak even good things, but because they do not say them well, they are putting forth 'windy words:' for their words, even if they be at any time sound in the sentence, are yet blown out in self-elation.

Yet one could excuse these things if the irritating words were uttered for some use and contained truth or even if they were spoken only briefly in passing. But if someone uses language which is calculated to sadden another falsely, uselessly, and over a lengthy period of time, he seems to be a burdensome counselor.

I also could speak as you do, if your soul were in the place of my soul. I could join words together against you, and shake my head at you.

I could strengthen you with my mouth, and the moving of my lips would hold back your pain.

If I speak, my pain is not held back; and if I cease, what goes from me?

But now he has wearied me; you have laid waste all my company.

And you have shriveled me up — it has become a witness; and my leanness rises up against me, and answers to my face.

His anger has torn, and has borne a grudge against me; he has gnashed at me with his teeth. My adversary sharpens his eyes at me.

Your words cruelly pierce me, because you endeavor to present me as a false witness before God, whose wrath "has torn me." Even in the middle of my mourning, where the loss of the children and cattle had dragged me, bodily pains invaded me. And I certainly remained silent, but he struck me with ominous reports and harsh news.

Ver. 9. He gathered his fury against me; and threatening me he gnashed against me with his teeth; mine enemy looked on me with terrible eyes. What else are all wicked men but members of the devil? Therefore he himself does by them, whatever he puts it into their hearts that they ought to do.

According to this second interpretation, the following verse is clearer. "He has collected his anger against me." For the devil seems to have collected his complete anger against Job when he assailed him with every kind of harm.

They have gaped at me with their mouth; in reproach they have struck my cheeks; together they mass themselves against me.

God delivers me over to a wrongdoer, and throws me into the hands of the wicked.

I was at ease, and he shattered me; and he seized me by the neck and dashed me to pieces; and he set me up for himself as a target.

His archers surround me; he splits open my kidneys and does not spare; he pours my gall out on the ground.

He breaks me, breach upon breach; he runs at me like a warrior.

I have sewn sackcloth over my hide, and thrust my horn into the dust.

My face is reddened with weeping, and on my eyelids is the shadow of death —

though there is no violence in my hands, and my prayer is pure.

O earth, do not cover my blood, and let there be no place for my cry.

"I have suffered this without committing iniquity." You have a good reason to be upset, because there was no cause for such a torment. "I have suffered this." Job is knowingly in pain against his merits. Therefore, he does not want the fact that he has been given to torments to remain hidden, but he desires what he suffers to be under the light.

Ver. 18. O earth, cover thou not my blood; and let my cry find no place to lie hid in thee. It was said to man on his committing sin, Earth thou art, and unto earth shalt thou return; and this 'earth' does not 'cover the blood' of our Redeemer: in that each several sinner taking to himself the price of his redemption makes confession and sings praise, and publishes it to all of…

However to disprove the innocence of Job, Eliphaz had already used twice the argument based on the frailty of earthly nature.

Even now, look — my witness is in the heavens, and he who testifies for me is in the heights.

My scorners are my friends; to God my eye drips.

And let him argue for a man with God, and for a son of man with his friend.

For the years of number come, and I shall go the way from which I shall not return.

Job16

Job Decries His Comforters