1And Job made answer and said, 2Such things have frequently come to my ears: you are comforters who only give trouble. 3May words which are like the wind be stopped? or what is troubling you to make answer to them? 4It would not be hard for me to say such things if your souls were in my soul's place; joining words together against you, and shaking my head at you: 5I might give you strength with my mouth, and not keep back the comfort of my lips. 6If I say what is in my mind, my pain becomes no less: and if I keep quiet, how much of it goes from me? 7But now he has overcome me with weariness and fear, and I am in the grip of all my trouble. 8It has come up as a witness against me, and the wasting of my flesh makes answer to my face. 9I am broken by his wrath, and his hate has gone after me; he has made his teeth sharp against me: my haters are looking on me with cruel eyes; 10Their mouths are open wide against me; the blows of his bitter words are falling on my face; all of them come together in a mass against me. 11God gives me over to the power of sinners, sending me violently into the hands of evil-doers. 12I was in comfort, but I have been broken up by his hands; he has taken me by the neck, shaking me to bits; he has put me up as a mark for his arrows. 13His bowmen come round about me; their arrows go through my body without mercy; my life is drained out on the earth. 14I am broken with wound after wound; he comes rushing on me like a man of war. 15I have made haircloth the clothing of my skin, and my horn is rolled in the dust. 16My face is red with weeping, and my eyes are becoming dark; 17Though my hands have done no violent acts, and my prayer is clean. 18O earth, let not my blood be covered, and let my cry have no resting-place! 19Even now my witness is in heaven, and the supporter of my cause is on high. 20My friends make sport of me; to God my eyes are weeping, 21So that he may give decision for a man in his cause with God, and between a son of man and his neighbour. 22For in a short time I will take the journey from which I will not come back.
Matthew Henry's Commentary
Job reproves his friends. (1-5) He represents his case as deplorable. (6-16) Job maintains his innocency. (17-22) 1-5 Eliphaz had represented Job's discourses as unprofitable, and nothing to the purpose; Job here gives his the same character. Those who pass censures, must expect to have them retorted; it is easy, it is endless, but what good does it do? Angry answers stir up men's passions, but never convince their judgments, nor set truth in a clear light. What Job says of his friends is true of all creatures, in comparison with God; one time or other we shall be made to see and own that miserable comforters are they all. When under convictions of sin, terrors of conscience, or the arrests of death, only the blessed Spirit can comfort effectually; all others, without him, do it miserably, and to no purpose. Whatever our brethren's sorrows are, we ought by sympathy to make them our own; they may soon be so. 6-16 Here is a doleful representation of Job's grievances. What reason we have to bless God, that we are not making such complaints! Even good men, when in great troubles, have much ado not to entertain hard thoughts of God. Eliphaz had represented Job as unhumbled under his affliction: No, says Job, I know better things; the dust is now the fittest place for me. In this he reminds us of Christ, who was a man of sorrows, and pronounced those blessed that mourn, for they shall be comforted. 17-22 Job's condition was very deplorable; but he had the testimony of his conscience for him, that he never allowed himself in any gross sin. No one was ever more ready to acknowledge sins of infirmity. Eliphaz had charged him with hypocrisy in religion, but he specifies prayer, the great act of religion, and professes that in this he was pure, though not from all infirmity. He had a God to go to, who he doubted not took full notice of all his sorrows. Those who pour out tears before God, though they cannot plead for themselves, by reason of their defects, have a Friend to plead for them, even the Son of man, and on him we must ground all our hopes of acceptance with God. To die, is to go the way whence we shall not return. We must all of us, very certainly, and very shortly, go this journey. Should not then the Saviour be precious to our souls? And ought we not to be ready to obey and to suffer for his sake? If our consciences are sprinkled with his atoning blood, and testify that we are not living in sin or hypocrisy, when we go the way whence we shall not return, it will be a release from prison, and an entrance into everlasting happiness.