Job 16:5-15

5 I could strengthen you with my mouth, and the solace of my lips would assuage your pain.

6 “If I speak, my pain is not assuaged, and if I forbear, how much of it leaves me?

7 Surely now God has worn me out; ¹he has^[a] made desolate all my company.

8 And he has shriveled me up, which is ²a witness against me, and my ³leanness has risen up against me; it testifies to my face.

9 He has ⁴torn me in his wrath ⁵and hated me; he has ⁶gnashed his teeth at me; my adversary sharpens his eyes against me.

10 Men have ⁷gaped at me with their mouth; they have ⁸struck me insolently on the cheek; they ⁹mass themselves together against me.

11 God gives me up to the ungodly and casts me into the hands of the wicked.

12 I was at ease, and he broke me apart; he seized me by the neck and dashed me to pieces; he set me up as his ¹⁰target;

13 his ¹¹archers surround me. He slashes open my kidneys ¹²and does not spare; he ¹³pours out my gall on the ground.

14 He breaks me with ¹⁴breach upon breach; he ¹⁵runs upon me like a warrior.

15 I have sewed ¹⁶sackcloth upon my skin and have laid ¹⁷my strength ¹⁸in the dust.

Job 16:5-15 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO JOB 16

This chapter and the following contain Job's reply to the preceding discourse of Eliphaz, in which he complains of the conversation of his friends, as unprofitable, uncomfortable, vain, empty, and without any foundation, Job 16:1-3; and intimates that were they in his case and circumstances, tie should behave in another manner towards them, not mock at them, but comfort them, Job 16:4,5; though such was his unhappy case, that, whether he spoke or was silent, it was much the same; there was no alloy to his grief, Job 16:6; wherefore he turns himself to God, and speaks to him, and of what he had done to him, both to his family, and to himself; which things, as they proved the reality of his afflictions, were used by his friends as witnesses against him, Job 16:7,8; and then enters upon a detail of his troubles, both at the hands of God and man, in order to move the divine compassion, and the pity of his friends, Job 16:9-14; which occasioned him great sorrow and distress, Job 16:15,16; yet asserts his own innocence, and appeals to God for the truth of it, Job 16:17-19; and applies to him, and wishes his cause was pleaded with him, Job 16:20,21; and concludes with the sense he had of the shortness of his life, Job 16:22; which sentiment is enlarged upon in the following chapter.

Cross References

• 1. 16:7 [ch. 15:34]; See ch. 1:15-19
• 2. 16:8 ch. 10:17; [Ruth 1:21]
• 3. 16:8 [Ps. 109:24]
• 4. 16:9 ch. 18:4; Hos. 6:1; Amos 1:11
• 5. 16:9 ch. 30:21
• 6. 16:9 Ps. 35:16; 37:12; 112:10; Lam. 2:16; Acts 7:54
• 7. 16:10 Ps. 22:13
• 8. 16:10 Ps. 3:7; Isa. 50:6; Lam. 3:30; Mic. 5:1; [1 Kgs. 22:24; Acts 23:2]
• 9. 16:10 Ps. 35:15
• 10. 16:12 Lam. 3:12; [ch. 7:20]
• 11. 16:13 Jer. 50:29
• 12. 16:13 ch. 27:22
• 13. 16:13 ch. 20:25; [Lam. 2:11]
• 14. 16:14 ch. 30:14
• 15. 16:14 ch. 15:26
• 16. 16:15 See 2 Sam. 3:31
• 17. 16:15 [Ps. 75:10]
• 18. 16:15 [Ps. 7:5]

Footnotes

• [a] 16:7 Hebrew 'you have'; also verse 8