Job
Summary
Job Chapter 16 is Job’s sharp response to Eliphaz, famously calling his friends "miserable comforters." He tells them that he could easily heap up empty words against them if their roles were reversed. Job describes God as his true adversary, who has "shaken him to pieces" and set him up as a target for his archers. He maintains his innocence, insisting that his prayer is pure and that his "record is on high." He cries out to the earth not to cover his blood, longing for an advocate to plead for a man with God. The chapter captures Job's raw physical and emotional pain as he feels abandoned by all.
Then Job replied:
"I have heard many things like these; miserable comforters are you all!"
"Will your long-winded speeches never end? What ails you that you keep on arguing?"
"I also could speak like you, if you were in my place; I could make fine speeches against you and shake my head at you."
"But my mouth would encourage you; comfort from my lips would assuage your pain."
"Yet if I speak, my pain is not assuaged; and if I refrain, it does not leave me."
"Surely, O God, you have worn me out; you have devastated my entire household."
"You have bound me, and it has become a witness; my gauntness rises up and testifies against me."
"God assails me and tears me in his anger and gnashes his teeth at me; my adversary fastens his glaring eyes on me."
"People open their mouths to jeer at me; they strike my cheek in scorn and unite together against me."
"God has turned me over to evil men and thrown me into the clutches of the wicked."
"All was well with me, but he shattered me; he seized me by the neck and crushed me. He has made me his target;"
"his archers surround me. Without pity, he pierces my kidneys and spills my gall on the ground."
"Again and again he smashes against me; he rushes at me like a warrior."
"I have sewed sackcloth over my skin and thrust my horn into the dust."
"My face is red with weeping, and deep shadows ring my eyes;"
"yet my hands have been free of violence and my prayer is pure."
"O earth, do not cover my blood; may my cry never be laid to rest!"
"Even now my witness is in heaven; my advocate is on high."
"My friends are my scoffers, as my eyes pour out tears to God;"
"he pleads for a man with God as a man pleads for his neighbour."
"Only a few years will pass before I take the journey of no return."