Bible Commentaries
Job 16

Verses 1-22

Job immediately answered. His answer dealt less with the argument they suggested than before. While the darkness was still about him, and in some senses the agony of his soul was deepening, yet it is impossible to read the whole of this answer without seeing that through the terrible stress he was at least groping after light, if at the moment we may not say that he saw any gleam of it. He first manifested his impatience with these men. Their philosophy was not new. He had heard many such things. Their comfort was nothing; they were "miserable comforters." Their pertinacity was his chief trouble. The folly of criticizing sorrow from the vantage point of prosperity is declared. Job said that he could speak as they if they were in his place, but he would not do it. He would attempt to strengthen them.

Following this outburst of scorn, we have a new statement of his grief. It was helped neither by speech nor silence. In describing his suffering he spoke of God's relentless method. In the midst of this he said:

Mine adversary sharpeneth his eyes upon me.

The word is not the same as that translated "Satan," but it indicates an enemy. Whether Job so understood it or not may be very doubtful; but in the light of what we know of the preliminary controversy in heaven it is quite possible to read this section as though he had seen some faint outline of the shadow of the foe.

Immediately following, he said: God delivereth me to the ungodly.

He was evidently conscious of a definite force against him. Perhaps there was more than he knew in what he said.

Continuing, Job now cried out in his distress, and here again it is most remarkable to see how his faith triumphed over his doubt. He declared that his witness was in heaven. He prayed that God would maintain his right with God.