Job 16:8

8 You've shriveled me like a dried prune, showing the world that you're against me. My gaunt face stares back at me from the mirror, a mute witness to your treatment of me.

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 "When I speak up, I feel no better; if I say nothing, that doesn't help either.
7 I feel worn down. God, you have wasted me totally - me and my family!
8 You've shriveled me like a dried prune, showing the world that you're against me. My gaunt face stares back at me from the mirror, a mute witness to your treatment of me.
9 Your anger tears at me, your teeth rip me to shreds, your eyes burn holes in me - God, my enemy!
10 People take one look at me and gasp. Contemptuous, they slap me around and gang up against me.
Published by permission. Originally published by NavPress in English as THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright 2002 by Eugene Peterson. All rights reserved.