Job 16:8

8 You have shriveled me up[a]-it has become a witness; My frailty rises up against me and testifies 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 Even if I speak, my suffering is not relieved, and if I hold back, what have I lost?
7 Surely He has now exhausted me. You have devastated my entire family.
8 You have shriveled me up-it has become a witness; My frailty rises up against me and testifies to my face.
9 His anger tears [at me], and He harasses me. He gnashes His teeth at me. My enemy pierces me with His eyes.
10 They open their mouths against me and strike my cheeks with contempt; they join themselves together against me.

Footnotes 1

  • [a]. Or have seized me; Hb obscure
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