Job 16 WEB
Summary: Job dismisses his friends as "miserable comforters" (v. 2) whose long-winded speeches bring no relief, and says that if their roles were reversed he could speak as they do, but would instead strengthen and comfort a suffering friend rather than add to his pain. He describes his own affliction in violent, personal imagery, feeling as though God himself has torn him, gnashed at him, and set him up as a target for arrows, while also being mocked and struck by human enemies. Yet amid this despair, Job appeals to heaven for a witness on his behalf, insisting that his prayer is pure and that there is one who can testify to his innocence even as his own body wastes away.
1Then Job answered,
2“I have heard many such things. You are all miserable comforters!
3Shall vain words have an end? Or what provokes you that you answer?
4I also could speak as you do. If your soul were in my soul’s place, I could join words together against you, and shake my head at you,
5but I would strengthen you with my mouth. The solace of my lips would relieve you.
6“Though I speak, my grief is not subsided. Though I forbear, what am I eased?
7But now, God, you have surely worn me out. You have made all my company desolate.
8You have shriveled me up. This is a witness against me. My leanness rises up against me. It testifies to my face.
9He has torn me in his wrath and persecuted me. He has gnashed on me with his teeth. My adversary sharpens his eyes on me.
10They have gaped on me with their mouth. They have struck me on the cheek reproachfully. They gather themselves together against me.
11God delivers me to the ungodly, and casts me into the hands of the wicked.
12I was at ease, and he broke me apart. Yes, he has taken me by the neck, and dashed me to pieces. He has also set me up for his target.
13His archers surround me. He splits my kidneys apart, and does not spare. He pours out my bile on the ground.
14He breaks me with breach on breach. He runs at me like a giant.
15I have sewed sackcloth on my skin, and have thrust my horn in the dust.
16My face is red with weeping. Deep darkness is on my eyelids.
17Although there is no violence in my hands, and my prayer is pure.
18“Earth, don’t cover my blood. Let my cry have no place to rest.
19Even now, behold, my witness is in heaven. He who vouches for me is on high.
20My friends scoff at me. My eyes pour out tears to God,
21that he would maintain the right of a man with God, of a son of man with his neighbor!
22For when a few years have come, I will go the way of no return.
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