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Matthew Henry |
J O B
CHAP. XVI.
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,
II. He represents his own case as very deplorable upon all accounts,
III. He still holds fast his integrity, concerning which he appeals to
God’s righteous judgment from the unrighteous censures of his friends,
| The Reply of Job to Eliphaz. | B. C. 1520. |
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1 Then Job answered and said,
2 I have heard many such things: miserable comforters are ye
all.
3 Shall vain words have an end? or what emboldeneth thee that
thou answerest?
4 I also could speak as ye do: if your soul were in my soul’s
stead, I could heap up words against you, and shake mine head at
you.
5 But I would strengthen you with my mouth, and the moving of
my lips should assuage your grief.
Both Job and his friends took the same way that disputants commonly
take, which is to undervalue one another’s sense, and wisdom, and
management. The longer the saw of contention is drawn the hotter it
grows; and the beginning of this sort of strife is as the
letting forth of water; therefore leave it off before it be meddled
with. Eliphaz had represented Job’s discourses as idle, and
unprofitable, and nothing to the purpose; and Job here gives his the
same character. Those who are free in passing such censures must expect
to have them retorted; it is easy, it is endless: but cui bono?–what
good does it do? It will stir up men’s passions, but will never
convince their judgments, nor set truth in a clear light. Job here
reproves Eliphaz,
1. For needless repetitions
(v. 2):
“I have heard many such things. You tell me nothing but what I
knew before, nothing but what you yourselves have before said; you
offer nothing new; it is the same thing over and over again.” This Job
thinks as great a trial of his patience as almost any of his troubles.
The inculcating of the same things thus by an adversary is indeed
provoking and nauseous, but by a teacher it is often necessary, and
must not be grievous to the learner, to whom precept must be upon
precept, and line upon line. Many things we have heard which it is
good for us to hear again, that we may understand and remember them
better, and be more affected with them and influenced by them.
2. For unskilful applications. They came with a design to comfort him,
but they went about it very awkwardly, and, when they touched Job’s
case, quite mistook it: “Miserable comforters are you all, who,
instead of offering any thing to alleviate the affliction, add
affliction to it, and make it yet more grievous.” The patient’s case is
sad indeed when his medicines are poisons and his physicians his worst
disease. What Job says here of his friends is true of all creatures, in
comparison with God, and, one time or other, we shall be made to see it
and own it, that miserable comforters are they all. When we are under
convictions of sin, terrors of conscience, and the arrests of death, it
is only the blessed Spirit that can comfort effectually; all others,
without him, do it miserably, and sing songs to a heavy heart, to no
purpose.
3. For endless impertinence. Job wishes that vain words might have
an end,
v. 3.
If vain, it were well that they were never begun, and the sooner they
are ended the better. Those who are so wise as to speak to the purpose
will be so wise as to know when they have said enough of a thing and
when it is time to break off.
4. For causeless obstinacy. What emboldeneth thee, that thou
answerest? It is a great piece of confidence, and unaccountable, to
charge men with those crimes which we cannot prove upon them, to pass a
judgment on men’s spiritual state upon the view of their outward
condition, and to re-advance those objections which have been again and
again answered, as Eliphaz did.
5. For the violation of the sacred laws of friendship, doing by his
brother as he would not have been done by and as his brother would not
have done by him. This is a cutting reproof, and very affecting,
(1.) He desires his friends, in imagination, for a little while, to
change conditions with him, to put their souls in his soul’s stead, to
suppose themselves in misery like him and him at ease like them. This
was no absurd or foreign supposition, but what might quickly become
true in fact. So strange, so sudden, frequently, are the vicissitudes
of human affairs, and such the turns of the wheel, that the spokes soon
change places. Whatever our brethren’s sorrows are, we ought by
sympathy to make them our own, because we know not how soon they may be
so.
(2.) He represents the unkindness of their conduct towards him, by
showing what he could do to them if they were in his condition: I
could speak as you do. It is an easy thing to trample upon those
that are down, and to find fault with what those say that are in
extremity of pain and affliction: “I could heap up words against
you, as you do against me; and how would you like it? how would you
bear it?”
(3.) He shows them what they should do, by telling them what in that
case he would do
(v. 5):
“I would strengthen you, and say all I could to assuage your
grief, but nothing to aggravate it.” It is natural to sufferers to
think what they would do if the tables were turned. But perhaps our
hearts may deceive us; we know not what we should do. We find it easier
to discern the reasonableness and importance of a command when we have
occasion to claim the benefit of it than when we have occasion to do
the duty of it. See what is the duty we owe to our brethren in their
affliction.
[1.] We should say and do all we can to strengthen them, suggesting to
them such considerations as are proper to encourage their confidence in
God and to support their sinking spirits. Faith and patience are the
strength of the afflicted; whatever helps these graces confirms the
feeble knees.
[2.] To assuage their grief–the causes of their grief, if possible, or
at least their resentment of those causes. Good words cost nothing; but
they may be of good service to those that are in sorrow, not only as it
is some comfort to them to see their friends concerned for them, but as
they may be so reminded of that which, through the prevalency of grief,
was forgotten. Though hard words (we say) break no bones, yet kind
words may help to make broken bones rejoice; and those have the
tongue of the learned that know how to speak a word in season
to the weary.
| Grievances of Job. | B. C. 1520. |
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6 Though I speak, my grief is not assuaged: and though I
forbear, what am I eased?
7 But now he hath made me weary: thou hast made desolate all my
company.
8 And thou hast filled me with wrinkles, which is a witness
against me: and my leanness rising up in me beareth witness to
my face.
9 He teareth me in his wrath, who hateth me: he gnasheth upon
me with his teeth; mine enemy sharpeneth his eyes upon me.
10 They have gaped upon me with their mouth; they have smitten
me upon the cheek reproachfully; they have gathered themselves
together against me.
11 God hath delivered me to the ungodly, and turned me over
into the hands of the wicked.
12 I was at ease, but he hath broken me asunder: he hath also
taken me by my neck, and shaken me to pieces, and set me up for
his mark.
13 His archers compass me round about, he cleaveth my reins
asunder, and doth not spare; he poureth out my gall upon the
ground.
14 He breaketh me with breach upon breach, he runneth upon me
like a giant.
15 I have sewed sackcloth upon my skin, and defiled my horn in
the dust.
16 My face is foul with weeping, and on my eyelids is the
shadow of death;
Job’s complaint is here as bitter as any where in all his discourses,
and he is at a stand whether to smother it or to give it vent.
Sometimes the one and sometimes the other is a relief to the afflicted,
according as the temper or the circumstances are; but Job found help by
neither,
v. 6.
1. Sometimes giving vent to grief gives ease; but, “Though I
speak” (says Job), “my grief is not assuaged, my spirit is
never the lighter for the pouring out of my complaint; nay, what I
speak is so misconstrued as to be turned to the aggravation of my
grief.”
2. At other times keeping silence makes the trouble the easier and the
sooner forgotten; but (says Job) though I forbear I am never the
nearer; what am I eased? If he complained he was censured as
passionate; if not, as sullen. If he maintained his integrity, that was
his crime; if he made no answer to their accusations, his silence was
taken for a confession of his guilt.
Here is a doleful representation of Job’s grievances. O what reason
have we to bless God that we are not making such complaints! He
complains,
I. That his family was scattered
(v. 7):
“He hath made me weary, weary of speaking, weary of forbearing,
weary of my friends, weary of life itself; my journey through the world
proves so very uncomfortable that I am quite tired with it.” This made
it as tiresome as any thing, that all his company was made desolate,
his children and servants being killed and the poor remains of his
great household dispersed. The company of good people that used to meet
at his house for religious worship, was now scattered, and he spent his
sabbaths in silence and solitude. He had company indeed, but such as he
would rather have been without, for they seemed to triumph in his
desolation. If lovers and friends are put far from us, we must see and
own God’s hand in it, making our company desolate.
II. That his body was worn away with diseases and pains, so that he had
become a perfect skeleton, nothing but skin and bones,
v. 8.
His face was furrowed, not with age, but sickness: Thou hast filled
me with wrinkles. His flesh was wasted with the running of his sore
boils, so that his leanness rose up in him, that is, his bones,
that before were not seen, stuck out,
These are called witnesses against him, witnesses of God’s
displeasure against him, and such witnesses as his friends produced
against him to prove him a wicked man. Or, “They are witnesses
for me, that my complaint is not causeless,” or “witnesses
to me, that I am a dying man, and must be gone shortly.”
III. That his enemy was a terror to him, threatened him, frightened
him, looked sternly upon him, and gave all the indications of rage
against him
(v. 9):
He tears me in his wrath. But who is this enemy?
1. Eliphaz, who showed himself very much exasperated against him, and
perhaps had expressed himself with such marks of indignation as are
here mentioned: at least, what he said tore Job’s good name and
thundered nothing but terror to him; his eyes were sharpened to spy out
matter of reproach against Job, and very barbarously both he and the
rest of them used him. Or,
2. Satan. He was his enemy that hated him, and perhaps, by the divine
permission, terrified him with apparitions, as (some think) he
terrified our Saviour, which put him into his agonies in the garden;
and thus he aimed to make him curse God. It is not improbable that this
is the enemy he means. Or,
(3.) God himself. If we understand it of him, the expressions are
indeed as rash as any he used. God hates none of his creatures; but
Job’s melancholy did thus represent to him the terrors of the Almighty:
and nothing can be more grievous to a good man than to apprehend God to
be his enemy. If the wrath of a king be as messengers of death, what is
the wrath of the King of kings!
IV. That all about him were abusive to him,
They came upon him with open mouth to devour him, as if they would
swallow him alive, so terrible were their threats and so scornful was
their conduct to him. They offered him all the indignities they could
invent, and even smote him on the cheek; and herein many were
confederate. They gathered themselves together against him, even
the abjects,
Herein Job was a type of Christ, as many of the ancients make him:
these very expressions are used in the predictions of his sufferings,
They gaped upon me with their mouths; and
(Mic. v. 1),
They shall smite the Judge of Israel with a rod upon the cheek,
which was literally fulfilled,
How were those increased that troubled him!
V. That God, instead of delivering him out of their hands, as he hoped,
delivered him into their hands
(v. 11):
He hath turned me over into the hands of the wicked. They could
have had no power against him if it had not been given them from above.
He therefore looks beyond them to God who gave them their commission,
as David did when Shimei cursed him; but he thinks it strange, and
almost thinks it hard, that those should have power against him who
were God’s enemies as much as his. God sometimes makes use of wicked
men as his sword to one another
and his rod to his own children,
Herein also Job was a type of Christ, who was delivered into wicked
hands, to be crucified and slain, by the determinate counsel and
fore-knowledge of God,
Acts ii. 23.
VI. That God not only delivered him into the hands of the wicked, but
took him into his own hands too, into which it is a fearful thing to
fall
(v. 12):
“I was at ease in the comfortable enjoyment of the gifts of
God’s bounty, not fretting and uneasy, as some are in the midst of
their prosperity, who thereby provoke God to strip them; yet he has
broken me asunder, put me upon the rack of pain, and torn me limb
from limb.” God, in afflicting him, had seemed,
1. As if he were furious. Though fury is not in God, he thought it was,
when he took him by the neck (as a strong man in a passion would
take a child) and shook him to pieces, triumphing in the irresistible
power he had to do what he would with him.
2. As if he were partial. “He has distinguished me from the rest of
mankind by this hard usage of me: He has set me up for his mark,
the butt at which he is pleased to let fly all his arrows: at me they
are directed, and they come not by chance; against me they are
levelled, as if I were the greatest sinner of all the men of the east
or were singled out to be made an example.” When God set him up for a
mark his archers presently compassed him round. God has
archers at command, who will be sure to hit the mark that he sets up.
Whoever are our enemies, we must look upon them as God’s archers, and
see him directing the arrow. It is the Lord; let him do what seemeth
him good.
3. As if he were cruel, and his wrath as relentless as his power was
resistless. As if he contrived to touch him in the tenderest part,
cleaving his reins asunder with acute pains; perhaps they were
nephritic pains, those of the stone, which lie in the region of the
kidneys. As if he had no mercy in reserve for him, he does not spare
nor abate any thing of the extremity. And as if he aimed at nothing but
his death, and his death in the midst of the most grievous tortures:
He pours out my gall upon the ground, as when men have taken a
wild beast, and killed it, they open it, and pour out the gall with a
loathing of it. He thought his blood was poured out, as if it were not
only not precious, but nauseous.
4. As if he were unreasonable and insatiable in his executions
(v. 14):
“He breaketh me with breach upon breach, follows me with one
wound after another.” So his troubles came at first; while one
messenger of evil tidings was speaking another came: and so it was
still; new boils were rising every day, so that he had no prospect of
the end of his troubles. Thus he thought that God ran upon him like
a giant, whom he could not possibly stand before or confront; as
the giants of old ran down all their poor neighbours, and were too hard
for them. Note, Even good men, when they are in great and
extraordinary troubles, have much ado not to entertain hard thoughts of
God.
VII. That he had divested himself of all his honour, and all his
comfort, in compliance with the afflicting providences that surrounded
him. Some can lessen their own troubles by concealing them, holding
their heads as high and putting on as good a face as ever; but Job
could not do so: he received the impressions of them, and, as one truly
penitent and truly patient, he humbled himself under the mighty hand of
God,
1. He now laid aside all his ornaments and soft clothing, consulted not
either his ease or finery in his dress, but sewed sackcloth upon his
skin; that clothing he thought good enough for such a defiled
distempered body as he had. Silks upon sores, such sores, he thought,
would be unsuitable; sackcloth would be more becoming. Those are fond
indeed of gay clothing that will not be weaned from it by sickness and
old age, and, as Job was
(v. 8),
by wrinkles and leanness. He not only put on sackcloth, but
sewed it on, as one that resolved to continue his humiliation as long
as the affliction continued.
2. He insisted not upon any points of honour, but humbled himself under
humbling providences: He defiled his horn in the dust, and
refused the respect that used to be paid to his dignity, power, and
eminency. Note, When God brings down our condition, that should bring
down our spirits. Better lay the horn in the dust than lift it up in
contradiction to the designs of Providence and have it broken at last.
Eliphaz had represented Job as high and haughty, and unhumbled under
his affliction. “No,” says Job, “I know better things; the dust is now
the fittest place for me.”
3. He banished mirth as utterly unseasonable, and set himself to sow in
tears
(v. 16):
“My face is foul with weeping so constantly for my sins, for
God’s displeasure against me, and for my friends unkindness: this has
brought a shadow of death upon my eyelids.” He had not only wept
away all his beauty, but almost wept his eyes out. In this also he was
a type of Christ, who was a man of sorrows, and much in tears, and
pronounced those blessed that mourn, for they shall be
comforted.
| Testimony of Conscience; Job’s Comfort in Conscious Integrity. | B. C. 1520. |
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17 Not for any injustice in mine hands: also my prayer is
pure.
18 O earth, cover not thou my blood, and let my cry have no
place.
19 Also now, behold, my witness is in heaven, and my record
is on high.
20 My friends scorn me: but mine eye poureth out tears unto
God.
21 O that one might plead for a man with God, as a man
pleadeth for his neighbour!
22 When a few years are come, then I shall go the way whence
I shall not return.
Job’s condition was very deplorable; but had he nothing to support him,
nothing to comfort him? Yes, and he here tells us what it was.
I. He had the testimony of his conscience for him that he had walked
uprightly, and had never allowed himself in any gross sin. None was
ever more ready than he to acknowledge his sins of infirmity; but, upon
search, he could not charge himself with any enormous crime, for which
he should be made more miserable than other men,
1. He had kept a conscience void of offence,
(1.) Towards men: “Not for any injustice in my hands, any wealth
that I have unjustly got or kept.” Eliphaz had represented him as a
tyrant and an oppressor. “No,” says he, “I never did any wrong to any
man, but always despised the gain of oppression.”
(2.) Towards God: Also my prayer is pure; but prayer cannot be
pure as long as there is injustice in our hands,
Isa. i. 15.
Eliphaz had charged him with hypocrisy in religion, but he specifies
prayer, the great act of religion, and professes that in that he was
pure, though not from all infirmity, yet from reigning and allowed
guile: it was not like the prayers of the Pharisees, who looked no
further than to be seen of men, and to serve a turn.
2. This assertion of his own integrity he backs with a solemn
imprecation of shame and confusion to himself if it were not true,
(1.) If there were any injustice in his hands, he wished it might not
be concealed: O earth! cover thou not my blood, that is, “the
innocent blood of others, which I am suspected to have shed.” Murder
will out; and “let it,” says Job, “if I have ever been guilty if it,”
The day is coming when the earth shall disclose her blood
and a good man as far from dreading that day.
(2.) If there were any impurity in his prayers, he wished they might
not be accepted: Let my cry have no place. He was willing to be
judged by that rule, If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will
not hear me,
Ps. lxvi. 18.
There is another probable sense of these words, that he does hereby, as
it were, lay his death upon his friends, who broke his heart with their
harsh censures, and charges the guilt of his blood upon them, begging
of God to avenge it and that the cry of his blood might have no place
in which to lie hid, but might come up to heaven and be heard by him
that makes inquisition for blood.
II. He could appeal to God’s omniscience concerning his integrity,
The witness in our own bosoms for us will stand us in little stead if
we have not a witness in heaven for us too; for God is greater than
our hearts, and we are not to he our own judges. This therefore is
Job’s triumph, My witness is in heaven. Note, It is an
unspeakable comfort to a good man, when he lies under the censure of
his brethren, that there is a God in heaven who knows his integrity and
will clear it up sooner or later. See
This one witness is instead of a thousand.
III. He had a God to go to before whom he might unbosom himself,
See here,
1. How the case stood between him and his friends. He knew not how to
be free with them, nor could he expect either a fair hearing with them
or fair dealing from them. “My friends (so they call themselves) scorn
me; they set themselves not only to resist me, but to expose me; they
are of counsel against me, and use all their art and eloquence” (so the
word signifies) “to run me down.” The scorns of friends are more
cutting than those of enemies; but we must expect them, and provide
accordingly.
2. How it stood between him and God. He doubted not but that,
(1.) God did now take cognizance of his sorrows: My eye pours out
tears to God. He had said
(v. 16)
that he wept much; here he tells us in what channel his tears ran, and
which way they were directed. His sorrow was not that of the world, but
he sorrowed after a godly sort, wept before the Lord, and offered to
him the sacrifice of a broken heart. Note, Even tears, when sanctified
to God, give ease to troubled spirits; and, if men slight our grief,
this may comfort us, that God regards them.
(2.) That he would in due time clear up his innocency
(v. 21):
O that one might plead for a man with God! If he could but now
have the same freedom at God’s bar that men commonly have at the bar of
the civil magistrate, he doubted not but to carry his cause, for the
Judge himself was a witness to his integrity. The language of this wish
is like that in
I know that I shall not be ashamed, for he is near that justifies
me. Some give a gospel sense of this verse, and the original will
very well bear it; and he will plead (that is, there is one that
will plead) for man with God, even the Son of man for his friend, or
neighbour. Those who pour out tears before God, though they cannot
plead for themselves, by reason of their distance and defects, have a
friend to plead for them, even the Son of man, and on this we must
bottom all our hopes of acceptance with God.
IV. He had a prospect of death which would put a period to all his
troubles. Such confidence had he towards God that he could take
pleasure in thinking of the approach of death, when he should be
determined to his everlasting state, as one that doubted not but it
would be well with him then: When a few years have come (the
years of number which are determined and appointed to me) then I
shall go the way whence I shall not return. Note,
1. To die is to go the way whence we shall not return. It is to
go a journey, a long journey, a journey for good and all, to remove
from this to another country, from the world of sense to the world of
spirits. It is a journey to our long home; there will be no coming back
to out state in this world nor any change of our state in the other
world.
2. We must all of us very certainly, and very shortly, go this journey;
and it is comfortable to those who keep a good conscience to think of
it, for it is the crown of their integrity.
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