Job 16:15 Commentary and Bible Study

‘I have sewed sackcloth upon my skin’ – this graphic expression describes what Job had done to cover himself, sowing sackcloth, not to his skin, but around his skin. The action of putting on sackcloth was often joined with rending one’s garment (Job 1:20) as an expression of mourning. It served the additional purpose of covering the unsightliness of his skin condition. ‘I … have defiled my horn in the dust.’ The horn of an animal was its strongest feature, the part with which it fought and defended itself, and therefore a symbol of power and honour. Kitto tells us that horns came to be used as ornaments, worn on the head by men and women, a sign of power. Scripture speaks of it as a symbol (1 Samuel 2:1, 10; 2 Samuel 22:3; 1 Chronicles 25:5, and often in the Psalms, as in Psalm 18:2). It is used in the New Testament also by Zacharias – ‘And hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David’ (Luke 1:69). This is Job’s way of saying he has abased himself. He laid his head in the dust, showing that he did not resist the low state that God had brought him to, but acknowledged that he was nothing more than dust before God gave him life.He could not hide the extent of his suffering, for all could see the marks of it on his face in the form of changes to the colour of his skin. He had wept before them all, and he had gone on weeping as tears had been driven from him day after day so that they had dried on his face. His eyelids were ready to close, a symbol of failing sight referring to the approach of death, or perhaps to the final closure of the eyes at the point of death.Job knew that no hypocrite can draw near to God. He considers how he has prayed to God. Has he tried to hide things from God? Has he flattered God in an attempt to get the Lord to overlook some evil in his life while having no intention of leaving it behind? Has he made God less great than he is, less holy that he is in an attempt to reconcile God to his sin? Has he drawn attention to his good works as if God could be paid off with these, or made promises to God which he really had no intention of keeping? He knows that this would immediately have disqualified his prayer. He denies doing any of these things. He has come to the God who sees him through and through, who knows as much about his innermost thoughts – and more – as he knows himself. Such a God cannot be deceived any more than a man can succeed in deceiving himself, and therefore, for Job, prayer is an exercise of giving God free access to his soul, and sharing his thoughts with the one before whom he stands naked. Because he has approached God in this way, he claims that his prayer is pure, and therefore he does not understand why he is suffering so. It later becomes evident that Elihu was there witnessing all that Job and the three comforters said, for it is because of such words as these that he later reports: ‘Surely thou [Job] hast spoken in mine hearing, and I have heard the voice of thy words, saying, ⁹ I am clean without transgression, I am innocent; neither is there iniquity in me’ (Job 33:8-9). Elihu’s admonition shows that although Job was not a hypocrite, God still had further lessons to teach him and further work of sanctification to do in him, which he had not yet understood. Job would later be ashamed of what he now spoke, and be ready to confess that he had spoken in ignorance.