Job 17:1-16
1 My breatha is corrupt, my days are extinct, the graves are ready for me.
2 Are there not mockers with me? and doth not mine eye continueb in their provocation?
3 Lay down now, put me in a surety with thee; who is he that will strike hands with me?
4 For thou hast hid their heart from understanding: therefore shalt thou not exalt them.
5 He that speaketh flattery to his friends, even the eyes of his children shall fail.
6 He hath made me also a byword of the people; and aforetimec I was as a tabret.
7 Mine eye also is dim by reason of sorrow, and all my membersd are as a shadow.
8 Upright men shall be astonied at this, and the innocent shall stir up himself against the hypocrite.
9 The righteous also shall hold on his way, and he that hath clean hands shall bee stronger and stronger.
10 But as for you all, do ye return, and come now: for I cannot find one wise man among you.
11 My days are past, my purposes are broken off, even the thoughtsf of my heart.
12 They change the night into day: the light is shortg because of darkness.
13 If I wait, the grave is mine house: I have made my bed in the darkness.
14 I have saidh to corruption, Thou art my father: to the worm, Thou art my mother, and my sister.
15 And where is now my hope? as for my hope, who shall see it?
16 They shall go down to the bars of the pit, when our rest together is in the dust.
Job was in the midst of difficulties. About him were mockers, none of whom understood him. He was become "a byword of the people." There was no "wise man." And yet he struggled through the unutterable darkness toward God's vindication. If that is not to come here, then let it come somewhere.
In all the movement of this great answer it would seem as though outlines of the truth were breaking upon Job. He was conscious of the action of God in his sorrows, of an adversary who followed him relentlessly and seemed to tear him pitilessly, even as a wild beast. Somehow, this adversary was connected with the action of God, and yet in the deepest of him Job knew that God was his Witness. His present trouble was that God did not appear for him. He had cried out, but the answer had not come. If he had a hope it was not evident, it could not be seen. He would go down to the dust.
And yet he seems to have got back to his original thought about death. It was rest. There was no clear shining of light, but one can well imagine how in the after-days he would come to recognize that these strivings of the soul and these passionate desires for divine defense were gleams even in the darkness.