Giobbe 16:8 Commento

This chapter begins Job's reply to that discourse of Eliphaz which we had in the foregoing chapter; it is but the second part of the same song of lamentation with which he had before bemoaned himself, and is set to the same melancholy tune. I. He upbraids his friends with their unkind usage of him (Job 16:1-5). II. He represents his own case as very deplorable upon all accounts (Job 16:6-16). III. He still holds fast his integrity, concerning which he appeals to God's righteous judgment from the unrighteous censures of his friends (Job 16:14-22).

INTRODUCTION TO JOB 16 This chapter and the following contain Job's reply to the preceding discourse of Eliphaz, in which he complains of the conversation of his friends, as unprofitable, uncomfortable, vain, empty, and without any foundation, Job 16:1; and intimates that were they in his case and circumstances, tie should behave in another manner towards them, not mock at them, but comfort them, Job 16:4; though such was his unhappy case, that, whether he spoke or was silent, it was much the same; there was no alloy to his grief, Job 16:6; wherefore he turns himself to God, and speaks to him, and of what he had done to him, both to his family, and to himself; which things, as they proved the reality of his afflictions, were used by his friends as witnesses against him, Job 16:7; and then enters upon a detail of his troubles, both at the hands of God and man, in order to move the divine compassion, and the pity of his friends, Job 16:9; which occasioned him great sorrow and distress, Job 16:15; yet asserts his own innocence, and appeals to God for the truth of it, Job 16:17; and applies to him, and wishes his cause was pleaded with him, Job 16:20; and concludes with the sense he had of the shortness of his life, Job 16:22; which sentiment is enlarged upon in the following chapter.

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, yet not with a positive but a negative hatred; that is, are not loved by him; and considered as profane and ungodly persons, and as such foreordained to condemnation; for sin may be said to be hated, but good men never are; God's chosen ones, his children and special people, are the objects of his everlasting love; and though he may be angry with them, and show a little seeming wrath towards them, yet never hates them; hatred and love are as opposite as any two things can possibly be; and indeed, strictly and properly speaking, there is no wrath nor fury in God towards his people; though they deserve it, they are not appointed to it, but are delivered from it by Christ; and neither that nor any of the effects of it shall ever light on them; but Job concluded this from the providence he was under, in which God appeared terrible to him, like a lion or any such fierce and furious creature, to which he is sometimes compared, and compares himself, which seizes on its prey, and tears and rends it to pieces; Isa 38:13; thus God permitted Job's substance to be taken from him by the Chaldeans and Sabeans; his children by death, which was like tearing off his limbs; and his skin and his flesh to be rent and broken by boils and ulcers: Job was a type of Christ in his sorrows and sufferings; and though he was not now in the best frame of mind, the flesh prevailed, and corruptions worked, and he expressed himself in an unguarded manner, yet perhaps we shall not find, in any part of this book, things expressed, and the language in which they are expressed, more similar and to be accommodated to the case, and sorrows, and sufferings of Christ, than in this context; for though he was the son of God's love, his dear and well beloved son, yet as he was the surety of his people, and bore and suffered punishment in their stead, justice behaved towards him as though there was a resentment unto him, and an aversion of him; yea, he says, "thou hast cast off and abhorred, thou hast been wroth with thine Anointed" or "Messiah", Psa 89:38; and indeed he did bear the wrath of God, the vengeance of justice or curse of the righteous law; and was suffered to be torn in every sense, his temples with a crown of thorns, his cheeks by those that plucked off the hair, his hands and feet by the nails driven in them, and his side by the spear; and his life was torn, snatched, and taken away from him in a violent manner: he gnasheth upon me with his teeth; as men do when they are full of wrath and fury: this is one way of showing it, as the enemies of David, a type of Christ, and the slayers of Stephen, his protomartyr, did, Psa 35:16; and as beasts of prey, such as the lion, wolf, do: mine enemy sharpeneth his eyes upon me; the Targum adds, as a razor. Here again Job considers God as his enemy, though he was not, misinterpreting his dealings with him; he represents him as looking out sharp after him, inspecting narrowly into all his ways, and works, and actions, strictly observing his failings and infirmities, calling him to an account, and afflicting him for them, and dealing rigidly and severely with him for any small offence: his eyes seemed to him to be like flames of fire, to sparkle with wrath and revenge; his thee, as he imagined, was set against him, and his eyes upon him to destroy him; and thus the eye of vindictive justice was upon Christ his antitype, when he was made sin and a curse for his people, and the sword of justice was awaked against him, and thrust in him.

Ver. 8. But now my grief has oppressed me, and my limbs are brought to nought. Holy Church is oppressed by her grief, when she beholds the wicked grow to a height in their wickedness; and whereas while the wicked increase, the weak too that are in her are set on to follow the bents of wickedness, it is rightly added, And all my limbs are brought to nought. For as the strong by 'bones,' so by 'limbs' the weak sort are wont to be denoted, and so 'the members of the Church are brought to nought,' when by the imitating of the wicked that are increased in this world, all the weak are worse weakened. For on seeing the prosperity of the wicked, they often slide away from their very stand in faith itself, they seek after temporal good things, and are in a manner 'brought to nought;' in that while they abandon the Being of God that is lasting, loving things that are transitory, they are, as it were, on their way to be not. And it is well said, But now my grief has oppressed me; in that the season of the grief of the Church is now, and the time of her joy shall follow hereafter. Now it often happens that Holy Church not only meets with unbelievers and those without her borders as her adversaries, but with difficulty bears with the plots and opposition of those too, whom she has within her.

The dissipation of my members not only cause me sensible pain, but it also bears witness against me. For when the friends of Job saw that he was so covered with ulcers, from this they charged that he had sinned grievously because they thought this had happened to him as a punishment for sin. The text continues in this vein, "my wrinkles give testimony against me," for his body is wrinkled from dehydration as a result of weakness as happens also in old age. He shows the manner in which his wrinkles testify against him when he says, "and the slanderer is raised up against me face, contradicting me." Eliphaz had slandered him when he said that he had fallen into this weakness because of sin. (4:7) This could also be explained saying that Job knew by the Holy Spirit that his adversity had been brought on by the devil, although God had permitted it to happen. So whatever he suffered whether in the loss of goods and children, the sores of his own body, or the annoyance caused by his wife and friends, he attributed all this to the devil as instigator. So he calls him a slanderer who has been raised up against his face because he understood that his friends at the instigation of the devil were speaking against him.

Man prepares, but God governs. God has made all things for himself; he hates pride. The judgments of God. The administration of kings; their justice, anger, and clemency. God has made all in weight, measure, and due proportion. Necessity produces industry. The patient man. The lot is under the direction of the Lord.

Thou hast filled me with wrinkles - If Job's disease were the elephantiasis, in which the whole skin is wrinkled as the skin of the elephant, from which this species of leprosy has taken its name, these words would apply most forcibly to it; but the whole passage, through its obscurity, has been variously rendered. Calmet unites it with the preceding, and Houbigant is not very different. He translates thus: - "For my trouble hath now weakened all my frame, and brought wrinkles over me: he is present as a witness, and ariseth against me, who telleth lies concerning me; he openly contradicts me to my face." Mr. Good translates nearly in the same way; others still differently.

JOB'S REPLY. (Job 16:1-22) (Job 13:4).

filled . . . with wrinkles--Rather (as also the same Hebrew word in Job 22:16; English Version, "cut down"), "thou hast fettered me, thy witness" (besides cutting off my "band of witnesses," Job 16:7), that is, hast disabled me by pains from properly attesting my innocence. But another "witness" arises against him, namely, his "leanness" or wretched state of body, construed by his friends into a proof of his guilt. The radical meaning of the Hebrew is "to draw together," whence flow the double meaning "to bind" or "fetter," and in Syriac, "to wrinkle." leanness--meaning also "lie"; implying it was a "false witness."