16 My face is foul with weeping, And on mine eyelids `is' death-shade.
And dim from sorrow is mine eye, And my members as a shadow all of them.
I have been weary with my sighing, I meditate through all the night `on' my bed, With my tear my couch I waste. Old from provocation is mine eye, It is old because of all mine adversaries,
When I have kept silence, become old have my bones, Through my roaring all the day.
I have been wearied with my calling, Burnt hath been my throat, Consumed have been mine eyes, waiting for my God.
Because ashes as bread I have eaten, And my drink with weeping have mingled,
Compassed me have cords of death, And straits of Sheol have found me, Distress and sorrow I find.
For these I am weeping, My eye, my eye, is running down with waters, For, far from me hath been a comforter, Refreshing my soul, My sons have been desolate, For mighty hath been an enemy.
And Jonah prayeth unto Jehovah his God from the bowels of the fish. And he saith: I called, because of my distress, to Jehovah, And He doth answer me, From the belly of sheol I have cried, Thou hast heard my voice. When Thou dost cast me `into' the deep, Into the heart of the seas, Then the flood doth compass me, All Thy breakers and Thy billows have passed over me. And I -- I said: I have been cast out from before Thine eyes, (Yet I add to look unto Thy holy temple!) Compassed me have waters unto the soul, The deep doth compass me, The weed is bound to my head. To the cuttings of mountains I have come down, The earth, her bars `are' behind me to the age. And Thou bringest up from the pit my life, O Jehovah my God. In the feebleness within me of my soul Jehovah I have remembered, And come in unto Thee doth my prayer, Unto Thy holy temple. Those observing lying vanities their own mercy forsake. And I -- with a voice of thanksgiving -- I sacrifice to Thee, That which I have vowed I complete, Salvation `is' of Jehovah. And Jehovah saith to the fish, and it vomiteth out Jonah on the dry land.
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.