Job 16:8

8 My rivellings say witnessing against me, and a false speaker is raised up against my face, and against-saith me. (My wrinkles testify against me, and a liar is raised up before me, and speaketh against 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 But what shall I do? If I speak, my sorrow resteth not; and if I am still, it goeth not away from me.
7 But now my sorrow hath oppressed me, and all my limbs be driven into nought.
8 My rivellings say witnessing against me, and a false speaker is raised up against my face, and against-saith me. (My wrinkles testify against me, and a liar is raised up before me, and speaketh against me.)
9 He gathered together his strong vengeance in me, and he menaced me, and he gnashed against me with his teeth; mine enemy hath beheld me with fearedful eyes. (He gathered together his strong vengeance against me, and he threatened me, and he gnashed against me with his teeth; my enemy hath looked at me with eyes full of hatred.)
10 They opened their mouths upon me, and they said shame to me, and they smote my cheek; and they be filled with my pains (and they gathered themselves together against me).
Copyright © 2001 by Terence P. Noble. For personal use only.