Job 16 KJV
Job's Reply: Miserable Comforters
Job Chapter 16: Job's Reply: Miserable Comforters
Job 16:19 introduces the concept of a heavenly 'witness' or 'record on high' that will vindicate the sufferer, an early biblical hint at a transcendent mediator figure that echoes later developments in intertestamental literature and New Testament advocacy motifs.
1hen Job answered and said,
2 I have heard many such things: miserable comforters are ye all.
3 Shall vain words have an end? or what emboldeneth thee that thou answerest?
4 I also could speak as ye do: if your soul were in my soulโs stead, I could heap up words against you, and shake mine head at you.
5 But I would strengthen you with my mouth, and the moving of my lips should asswage your grief.
6 Though I speak, my grief is not asswaged: and though I forbear, what am I eased?
7 But now he hath made me weary: thou hast made desolate all my company.
8 And thou hast filled me with wrinkles, which is a witness against me: and my leanness rising up in me beareth witness to my face.
9 He teareth me in his wrath, who hateth me: he gnasheth upon me with his teeth; mine enemy sharpeneth his eyes upon me.
10 They have gaped upon me with their mouth; they have smitten me upon the cheek reproachfully; they have gathered themselves together against me.
11 God hath delivered me to the ungodly, and turned me over into the hands of the wicked.
12 I was at ease, but he hath broken me asunder: he hath also taken me by my neck, and shaken me to pieces, and set me up for his mark.
13 His archers compass me round about, he cleaveth my reins asunder, and doth not spare; he poureth out my gall upon the ground.
14 He breaketh me with breach upon breach, he runneth upon me like a giant.
15 I have sewed sackcloth upon my skin, and defiled my horn in the dust.
16 My face is foul with weeping, and on my eyelids is the shadow of death;
17 Not for any injustice in mine hands: also my prayer is pure.
18 O earth, cover not thou my blood, and let my cry have no place.
19 Also now, behold, my witness is in heaven, and my record is on high.
20 My friends scorn me: but mine eye poureth out tears unto God.
21 O that one might plead for a man with God, as a man pleadeth for his neighbour!
22 When a few years are come, then I shall go the way whence I shall not return.
โ โ arrow keys to navigate chapters ยท spacebar to play/pause audio
Did You Know?
Job 16:19 introduces the concept of a heavenly 'witness' or 'record on high' that will vindicate the sufferer, an early biblical hint at a transcendent mediator figure that echoes later developments in intertestamental literature and New Testament advocacy motifs.
The chapter deploys extended archery imagery (v.13) in which God is cast as an archer whose arrows both pierce Job and open his wounds further for others to gloat over, inverting typical ANE warrior-deity tropes where arrows bring protection rather than unrelenting torment.
Verse 18 alludes to the uncovered blood of the innocent crying from the ground (cf. Gen 4:10), but Job reverses the plea by demanding that his own blood not be hidden so that his cry may reach heaven, framing his suffering as an unresolved legal claim against the divine realm.
Job's simultaneous address to both his human friends and God within a single speech (vv. 2-6 then 7-17) creates a rhetorical 'trial within a trial,' where earthly comforters are dismissed while the divine court is still being petitioned, highlighting the isolation of the lamenter in wisdom literature.
The closing image of Job's eyes continually 'pouring out tears unto God' (v.20) stands in tension with his accusations, preserving a thread of directed prayer even as he describes God as his violent adversary, a paradox that underscores the book's exploration of faithful protest.