9 His anger hath torn, and he hateth me, He hath gnashed at me with his teeth, My adversary sharpeneth his eyes for me.
With profane ones, mockers in feasts, Gnashing against me their teeth.
Opened against thee their mouth have all thine enemies, They have hissed, yea, they gnash the teeth, They have said: `We have swallowed `her' up, Surely this `is' the day that we looked for, We have found -- we have seen.'
And it riseth -- as a lion Thou huntest me. And Thou turnest back -- Thou shewest Thyself wonderful in me. Thou renewest Thy witnesses against me, And dost multiply Thine anger with me, Changes and warfare `are' with me.
(He is tearing himself in his anger.) For thy sake is earth forsaken? And removed is a rock from its place?
The wicked is devising against the righteous, And gnashing against him his teeth.
`Come, and we turn back unto Jehovah, For He hath torn, and He doth heal us, He doth smite, and He bindeth us up.
And puttest in the stocks my feet, And observest all my paths, On the roots of my feet Thou settest a print,
Understand this, I pray you, Ye who are forgetting God, Lest I tear, and there is no deliverer.
For I `am' as a lion to Ephraim, And as a young lion to the house of Judah, I -- I tear and go, I bear away, and there is no deliverer.
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.