Job 16

CHAPTER 16

Job (16:1–22)

1–5 Here Job again criticizes his miserable comforters (his three “friends”) and their long winded speeches (verses 2–3). If they had been in Job's position, he would have given them true comfort and relief (verse 5).

If we are ever called upon to counsel a suffering friend, let our “speeches” be brief and non—judgmental. Indeed, we should spend more time listening than talking.

6–14 In these verses, Job expresses his belief that God has become his opponent (verse 9)—his enemy. Some of Job's most rash and disrespectful words are recorded here, as he describes the various ways in which he feels God is attacking him.³⁷

Job says that his situation—the devastation of his household (verse 7), his bodily suffering—is like a witness against him; his suffering testifies that he is a sinner (verse 8). But, according to Job, his suffering has not been caused by sin; it has been caused by God, his “opponent.”

15–17 Here Job speaks of his continuous mourning and humiliation; yet once again he claims to be innocent of wrongdoing: his hands are free of violence and his prayer—his heart—is pure (verse 17).

18–22 Job believes that he will die without being vindicated; he feels he has only a few years before going on the journey of no return—the journey to the grave (verse 22). Therefore, he doesn't want the injustice done to him ever to be forgotten; he doesn't want the earth to cover—to hide—his blood (verse 18). He wants his blood to “cry out” from the ground, just as Abel's blood “cried” out after he was unjustly killed (Genesis 4:10).

Having no hope of vindication on earth, Job expresses a wish that he might be vindicated in heaven. In verses 19–21, he imagines a witness, an advocate, an intercessor who will plead with God on his behalf. The “intercessor” Job envisioned was most likely an angel, one of God's “holy ones” (Job 5:1; 9:33–34). Job, without realizing it, was expressing a universal need among human beings for someone to intercede with God on their behalf. God is so great and awesome that humans find it difficult to approach Him directly (see Exodus 20:18–19; Deuteronomy 18:15–16). Though Job couldn't know it at the time, the wish he expressed would ultimately be fulfilled in Jesus Christ, the true Mediator and Intercessor for all people for all time (1 Timothy 2:4–6; Hebrews 7:24–25).