Job 17:6

This verse reads,

I am made also a byeword or the peoples,

And am become one to be spit on in the face.

The words, I am mademight mean, as A.V., He hath made me, the reference being to God. Undoubtedly Job turns away here from men and refers to a broader evil, the inexplicable course of the world in God's hand. But probably the allusion to God is made in this indirect way. By the "peoples" Job means mankind in its various tribes, for his calamity and the wickedness that was inferred from it would be widely known. Comp. what is said by Job of his treatment by the debased races of men about him, ch. Job 30:9 seq.; and see a similar statement in Bildad's reply, ch. Job 18:20.

aforetime I was as a tabret Rather as above; lit. I am(must be) a spitting-in-the-face. A tabretis a timbrel or tambourine (comp. tabering, i. e. beating, upon their breasts, Nahum 2:7); the Heb. word topheth(spitting) has been wrongly assumed by the A.V. to be of the same meaning as toph(timbrel).