Job 16:6 - Meaning and Application

Job’s complaint here is as bitter as any he makes in all his speeches. He seems unsure whether to hold it in or let it out. For troubled people, either choice can sometimes help, depending on their mood or situation, but Job found relief in neither way (Job 16:6).

Sometimes speaking out does ease grief, but Job says, “Though I speak, my grief is not eased.” Pouring out his complaint did not make him feel lighter. Worse, what he said was often twisted and used to increase his pain. At other times, silence can make sorrow easier to bear or easier to forget, but Job says that even when he kept quiet, he was no better off. If he complained, they called him angry. If he said nothing, they treated his silence as guilt. If he defended his integrity, they blamed him for that too. If he stayed silent, they said he was confessing his sin. We should thank God that we are not forced to make such complaints.

Job says, first, that his family was scattered (Job 16:7). God had made him weary, weary of speaking, weary of holding back, weary of his friends, even weary of life itself. His journey through the world had become so painful that he was exhausted by it. It was especially hard because his children and servants were dead, and the remains of his large household had been scattered. The company of godly people who used to gather at his house for worship was gone, and he spent his Sabbaths in silence and loneliness. He did have company, but it was the kind he would have rather not had, because they seemed to rejoice in his ruin. When friends and loved ones are taken away from us, we should recognize God’s hand in it.

Second, Job says that his body was wasting away with disease and pain, until he looked like a skeleton, nothing but skin and bones (Job 16:8). His face was lined, not by age, but by sickness. “You have filled me with wrinkles,” he says. His flesh was worn down by the open sores, so that his bones stood out clearly (Job 33:21). He calls these things witnesses against him, witnesses of God’s anger, and the same kind of witnesses his friends used to argue that he was wicked. Or he may mean that they are witnesses for him, proving that his complaint is not empty, or witnesses to him that he is a dying man and will soon be gone.

Third, Job says that his enemy was a terror to him (Job 16:9). This enemy threatened him, stared him down, and showed clear anger. Who was this enemy? It may have been Eliphaz, who had shown strong hostility and spoken in a way that wounded Job’s name and filled him with fear. It may have been Satan, his true enemy, who hated him and perhaps frightened him with terrible visions, as some think he later did to Christ in the garden, in order to drive him to curse God. Or Job may have meant God himself. If so, Job’s words were rash, but they show how deeply his sadness distorted his view. God hates none of his creatures, yet Job’s heavy mind made God seem like an enemy. If a king’s anger can mean death, then what must the anger of the King of kings be like?

Fourth, Job says that everyone around him treated him harshly (Job 16:10). They came at him with open mouths, as if they would devour him. Their threats were so fierce and their behavior so mocking that it felt like they wanted to swallow him alive. They poured out every insult they could invent, and some even struck him on the cheek. Many joined together against him, even low and worthless men (Psalm 35:15). In this, Job was a picture of Christ, as many early Bible readers have noted. The same kind of language is used about Christ’s sufferings: “They gape at me with their mouths” (Psalm 22:13), and “They will strike the judge of Israel on the cheek” (Micah 5:1), which was fulfilled when Christ was struck (Matthew 26:67). How many more were added to those who troubled him!

Fifth, Job says that God, instead of rescuing him from their hands as he had hoped, handed him over to them (Job 16:11). They could have had no power over him unless it had been given from above. So Job looks beyond them to the God who allowed it, as David did when Shimei cursed him. Still, he finds it strange, and almost hard to bear, that those who were God’s enemies also had power over him. God sometimes uses wicked people as his sword against one another (Psalm 17:13) and as a rod to discipline his own children (Isaiah 10:5). In this also Job pointed ahead to Christ, who was given into wicked hands to be crucified and killed, according to God’s settled plan and foreknowledge (Acts 2:23).

Sixth, Job says that God not only handed him over to wicked people, but also took him into his own hand, and that is a fearful thing (Job 16:12). He says he had been at ease, enjoying God’s gifts without complaint or restless greed, unlike some who misuse prosperity and bring judgment on themselves. Yet God had broken him apart, as if putting him on a rack of pain and tearing him limb from limb. In his suffering, Job felt as if God were furious, though fury is not truly in God. He imagined God grabbing him by the neck, like a strong man in anger shaking a child apart. He also felt singled out, as if God had set him up as a target and aimed all his arrows at him. When God sets a mark, his archers will surely hit it. Whoever our enemies are, we must remember that they are under God’s rule, and that he is directing the arrow. It is the Lord, and he may do what seems good to him.

Job also felt as if God were cruel, with wrath as relentless as his power was unstoppable. It seemed as though God aimed at the most painful place, splitting open his inward parts with sharp pain, perhaps pain in the kidneys. It felt as if God showed him no mercy at all, giving no relief and no easing of the suffering.

He seems to be aiming at nothing less than Job’s death, and a death marked by the most terrible suffering. Job says, “He pours out my gall on the ground.” That is like treating him as if he were a wild animal, killed and cut open with disgust. He thought his blood was being poured out as something not only worthless, but revolting.

Job also feels as if God is striking him again and again without mercy, as he says in Job 16:14, “He breaks me with break after break. He runs at me like a warrior.” That is how his troubles came. One messenger after another brought bad news, and then the boils kept appearing day after day, so he could see no end to his pain. It seemed to him that God rushed at him like a giant, too strong for any human being to stand against. Even good people, when they face severe and unusual trouble, can struggle not to think hard things about God.

Job also says that he has set aside all his honor and comfort because of the suffering around him. Some people hide their pain and try to keep up appearances. Job could not do that. He felt the weight of his misery and, like a truly repentant and patient man, humbled himself under God’s mighty hand (Job 16:15, Job 16:16).

He laid aside his ornaments and soft clothes. He did not care about comfort or fine dress, but sewed sackcloth against his skin. He thought that rough clothing was fitting for a body so covered with sores and disease. Fine clothing on such wounds would feel wrong. He even sewed the sackcloth on, showing that he meant to stay humbled as long as his suffering lasted. People are surely too attached to fine clothes if sickness and old age do not loosen their grip on them.

Job also would not cling to his dignity. He says he has “defiled his horn in the dust,” meaning he has let go of the honor, strength, and high standing that people once gave him. When God brings a person low, that should bring down the heart as well. It is better to lay one’s horn in the dust than to keep lifting it against God’s purpose and end up broken in the end. Eliphaz had accused Job of being proud and unwilling to bow under his trouble, but Job says the opposite is true. Dust is the right place for him now.

Finally, Job cast away joy, because it was no time for cheerfulness. He says, “My face is red with weeping,” meaning he has wept so much for his sins, for God’s anger against him, and for the unkindness of his friends. The sadness has cast a shadow of death over his eyelids. He had not only lost the beauty of his face, but nearly his eyes as well through constant tears. In this too he points forward to Christ, who was a man of sorrows and often wept, and who called those blessed who mourn, because they will be comforted.