Job 16:1 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters | Metropolitan Tabernacle

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Job 16:1

Comments

The subject of chapters 16 and 17 is Job’s depression. By this time Job is completely weaned from his friends, worn down by their man-centred doctrines, and longing for a spiritual explanation of his trials. In deepest depression he yet again implies that the grave will be his final end (Job 17.13-16).He has heard many such sayings from them and indeed they keep repeating themselves and have nothing new to say, but pour out the same inadequate conclusions again and again. It is because of their poverty of thought about his sufferings that they eventually dry up and cease to speak, while Job still has more to say.They have come to comfort him and initially they showed great sympathy, sitting with him in silence for seven days. But it would have been better if they had continued in silence, than that they commented on what they did not understand, and ended up as Satan’s tools to further torment Job. Did Eliphaz and his friends think they were saying anything helpful to Job? From the time of his first speech, they had made up their minds that he did not need gentle comfort but something much stronger in order to bring him to his senses. They therefore felt justified in becoming increasingly hostile when he resisted the thrust of their admonition, but they still felt that this was the only approach that would do him any good. Job regarded them as cruel, driven by an inadequate theology that failed to take into account the realities of life, and that had no understanding of how God treats a man as righteous.He asks them to reflect on what they are saying and not stubbornly go on speaking when what they have said is so worthless. Their words are just wind, a noise, a movement with no substance to it. True words accomplish something; they have worthwhile ideas behind them and are not simply a sound to fill an empty space. This was exactly the same criticism that Eliphaz had made of Job (15:2-3). It is part of the difficulty of the book that on the surface those on the two sides of the dispute appear to say such similar things. Is this then just a wrangle over words? On the contrary, there are deep principles at stake and the interpreter must read between the lines to discern the theology of the speaker, otherwise the book cannot be understood.

Application

One of the objects of his trials is that Job is being weaned off the support of these men. The evidence is that he had spent much more time with them than with the spiritual men. His main friends are those outside the faith. It is a lesson in counselling. Let us never be those who come under the same condemnation as these men, offering vain unthought out words of advice. The worst thing we can do is be flippant and offer any old platitude. Sometimes the condition people are in is deep and they need deep counsel. It must be thought out, and not just bullying counsel. The comforters went straight in with their words. If it is easy to form a conclusion, it is probably quite the wrong treatment. Rather, we have to think of words that fit the case.

‘What grieves you or provokes you, that you do not just remain silent?’, he says. Indeed the comforters appeared to be strongly provoked by what Job said, so that they could not refrain from answering him. They felt they must rise up on God’s behalf to condemn such nonsense as they heard him say. But God did not need such advocates, and they actually opposed his cause in what they said, adding to the confusion that surrounded Job. How often people have thought to defend God’s cause, when really they betray it! Of the Jews Paul said, ‘I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge’ (Romans 10:2), and we could say the same of Islam. Religion raise strong passions in men, but passion without light is worth little.

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Job 16:1 Commentary and Bible Study