4 I also could speak as ye: if your soul were in my soul's stead, I could join together words against you, and shake my head at you;
And I am become a reproach unto them; [when] they look upon me they shake their heads.
All they that see me laugh me to scorn; they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, [saying:]
to make their land an astonishment, a perpetual hissing: every one that passeth by shall be astonished, and shake his head.
This is the word that Jehovah has spoken against him: The virgin-daughter of Zion despiseth thee, laugheth thee to scorn; The daughter of Jerusalem shaketh her head at thee.
And if one member suffer, all the members suffer with [it]; and if one member be glorified, all the members rejoice with [it].
Rejoice with those that rejoice, weep with those that weep.
Oh that my grief were thoroughly weighed, and all my calamity laid in the balances! For now it would be heavier than the sand of the seas; therefore my words are vehement. For the arrows of the Almighty are within me, their poison drinketh up my spirit: the terrors of +God are arrayed against me. Doth the wild ass bray by the grass? loweth an ox over his fodder?
This is the rejoicing city that dwelt in security, that said in her heart, I am, and there is none else beside me: how is she become a desolation, a couching-place for beasts! Every one that passeth by her shall hiss, shall wave his hand.
In the multitude of words there wanteth not transgression; but he that restraineth his lips doeth wisely.
Thou makest us a byword among the nations, a shaking of the head among the peoples.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Job 16
Commentary on Job 16 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 16
This chapter begins Job's reply to that discourse of Eliphaz which we had in the foregoing chapter; it is but the second part of the same song of lamentation with which he had before bemoaned himself, and is set to the same melancholy tune.
Job 16:1-5
Both Job and his friends took the same way that disputants commonly take, which is to undervalue one another's sense, and wisdom, and management. The longer the saw of contention is drawn the hotter it grows; and the beginning of this sort of strife is as the letting forth of water; therefore leave it off before it be meddled with. Eliphaz had represented Job's discourses as idle, and unprofitable, and nothing to the purpose; and Job here gives his the same character. Those who are free in passing such censures must expect to have them retorted; it is easy, it is endless: but cui bono?-what good does it do? It will stir up men's passions, but will never convince their judgments, nor set truth in a clear light. Job here reproves Eliphaz,
Job 16:6-16
Job's complaint is here as bitter as any where in all his discourses, and he is at a stand whether to smother it or to give it vent. Sometimes the one and sometimes the other is a relief to the afflicted, according as the temper or the circumstances are; but Job found help by neither, v. 6.
Here is a doleful representation of Job's grievances. O what reason have we to bless God that we are not making such complaints! He complains,
Job 16:17-22
Job's condition was very deplorable; but had he nothing to support him, nothing to comfort him? Yes, and he here tells us what it was.