Bible Commentaries
Job 17

Verses 1-16

Job has much more to say than his friends had, and we may marvel at the detailed way in which he describes his present condition in contrast to what he had once enjoyed. "My spirit is broken, my days are extinguished, the grave is ready for me" (v.1). Was it true that mockers were with him? They might think they were comforters, but were they not mocking? (v.2).

Job considered himself so despised that no one would even shake hands with him, and he thought that God had hidden their heart from understanding (vv.3-4). In verse 5 he certainly was not accusing his friends of flattering him, but did he mean that he would not dare to flatter them?

But rather than being flattered by people, Job now thought that God had made him a byword of the people (v.6), one in whose face men would spit. If this was not literally true, it was true figuratively. His sorrow had affected his eyesight and he felt his bodily members were like shadows. (v.7). If men were upright they would be astonished at Job's sufferings, but his friends showed no such astonishment. In fact Job, knowing himself innocent of the charges against him, was stirred up against the hypocrisy of his friends, and Job would hold to his way in spite of the opposition. As he says, "he who has clean hands will be stronger and stronger" (v.9). This is true, but at the time did Job feet stronger and stronger? Thank God his experience would certainly end in his being strengthened.

In verse 10 Job pleads with his friends to come back again, that is, no doubt, to come back to a sensible position of actually being comforters, for he had found none of the three to be wise men. (v.11). It seemed to him his life was finished, and there was nothing to live for. In verse 12 it seems he refers to his friends as changing the night into day, that is, regarding Job's distressing night time experiences as light enough for them to understand that his troubles were because of his sin.