Job 16:8

8 It has come up as a witness against me, and the wasting of my flesh makes answer to my face.

Job 16:8 Meaning and Commentary

Job 16:8

And thou hast filled me with wrinkles
Not through old age, but through affliction, which had sunk his flesh, and made furrows in him, so that he looked older than he was, and was made old thereby before his time; see ( Lamentations 3:4 ) ; for this is to be understood of his body, for as for his soul, that through the grace of God, and righteousness of Christ, was without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing:

[which] is a witness [against me];
as it was improved by his friends, who represented his afflictions as proofs and testimonies of his being a bad man; though these wrinkles were witnesses for him, as it may be as well supplied, that he really was an afflicted man:

and my leanness rising up in me;
his bones standing up, and standing out, and having scarce anything on them but skin, the flesh being gone:

beareth witness to my face;
openly, manifestly, to full conviction; not that he was a sinful man, but an afflicted man; Eliphaz had no reason to talk to Job of a wicked man's being covered with fatness, and of collops of fat on his flanks, ( Job 15:27 ) ;

Job 16:8 In-Context

6 If I say what is in my mind, my pain becomes no less: and if I keep quiet, how much of it goes from me?
7 But now he has overcome me with weariness and fear, and I am in the grip of all my trouble.
8 It has come up as a witness against me, and the wasting of my flesh makes answer to my face.
9 I 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;
10 Their 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.
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