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 has much more to say than his friends had, and we may marvel at the detailed way in which he describes his present condition in contrast to what he had once enjoyed. "My spirit is broken, my days are extinguished, the grave is ready for me" (v.1). Was it true that mockers were with him? They might think they were comforters, but were they not mocking? (v.2).
Job considered himself so despised that no one would even shake hands with him, and he thought that God had hidden their heart from understanding (vv.3-4). In verse 5 he certainly was not accusing his friends of flattering him, but did he mean that he would not dare to flatter them?
But rather than being flattered by people, Job now thought that God had made him a byword of the people (v.6), one in whose face men would spit. If this was not literally true, it was true figuratively. His sorrow had affected his eyesight and he felt his bodily members were like shadows. (v.7). If men were upright they would be astonished at Job's sufferings, but his friends showed no such astonishment. In fact Job, knowing himself innocent of the charges against him, was stirred up against the hypocrisy of his friends, and Job would hold to his way in spite of the opposition. As he says, "he who has clean hands will be stronger and stronger" (v.9). This is true, but at the time did Job feet stronger and stronger? Thank God his experience would certainly end in his being strengthened.
In verse 10 Job pleads with his friends to come back again, that is, no doubt, to come back to a sensible position of actually being comforters, for he had found none of the three to be wise men. (v.11). It seemed to him his life was finished, and there was nothing to live for. In verse 12 it seems he refers to his friends as changing the night into day, that is, regarding Job's distressing night time experiences as light enough for them to understand that his troubles were because of his sin.