Job 17:1 - Meaning and Application

Job’s speech here is somewhat broken and interrupted. He suddenly passes from one thought to another, as people often do in trouble. Still, we can gather what he says under a few main points. He describes his sad condition, shows how his friends used that misery against him, and then appeals from them to God.

Job begins by saying he is a dying man (Job 17:1). In Job 16:22, he had said, “When a few years have come, I will go that long journey.” Here he corrects himself, as if to say, “Why talk about years? I am already setting out.” His breath is nearly gone, his strength is spent, and he feels ready to depart. It is wise for all of us to think of ourselves as dying, especially when we are sick.

We are dying in several ways. Our life is going because the breath of life is going. It keeps moving out of us, and our body is only its passing dwelling. Job’s disease may have made breathing hard for him, and short breath can soon become no breath at all. Let the Anointed of the Lord be the breath of our nostrils, and let us ask for spiritual life from him. That life will never grow corrupt.

We are also dying because our time is running out. Job says, “My days are extinct,” meaning they are like a candle burning down. From the moment a candle is lit, it keeps wasting away until it goes out, though many things can put it out sooner. Life is like that. So we should use our days well and spend them preparing for eternity, which will never end.

We are also expected in our “long home,” the grave. Job says, “The graves are ready for me.” He is speaking of the burial place of his fathers, where he too will be gathered. Wherever we go, the grave is only a step away. If the grave is ready for us, then we should be ready for the grave. Job’s words also show that he longs for death. He has done with the world and sees only the grave ahead.

Job is also a despised man (Job 17:6). He says that God has made him a byword among the people, something everyone talks about and laughs at. Before, he had been like a tabret, a drum or tambourine that people could strike at will. In other words, he had once been a delight to others, but now he is their joke. This often happens to those who were honored in wealth but are despised in poverty.

He is also a man of sorrow (Job 17:7). He has wept so much that his eyesight is dim. Sorrow has worn him down until he is little more than skin and bones. He feels like a shadow of a man, not even like a full human being.

Now Job turns to the wrong his friends have done to him. They have trampled on him, mocked him, and treated him like a hypocrite because he suffers so deeply. That is harsh treatment. He says they have abused him with their hard words and their fake comfort. They pretend to be his friends, but they are really hurting him to his face. He cannot get away from them, and they will not stop, even when reason and pity should move them.

He also says they abused him with their fair promises. They told him what he should do and made him hope for good things, but he now sees their words as empty flattery. They came as mourners, and Eliphaz even began by praising him in Job 4:3, but Job feels that all of it was meant to sting him more deeply. They provoked him and then blamed him for reacting. He feels justified in his grief, because their provoking has never stopped.

Job says their behavior shows that God has hidden their hearts from understanding (Job 17:4). In this matter, they have become foolish, and their usual wisdom has left them. Wisdom is God’s gift, and he gives it to some people and withholds it from others, and also at different times from the same person. Those who show no pity are showing that they lack understanding. When a person has no tenderness, we may rightly question whether he has true sense.

Job also says their conduct will bring them lasting shame. God will not honor people whose hearts are hidden from understanding. When God allows men to become foolish, he will also bring them low. Those who understand so little about God’s ways should not be the ones to settle this dispute. That place belongs to a better, calmer mind, such as Elihu later showed.

He adds that this wrong will affect their families too. If a man breaks the holy bond of friendship, he loses its good to himself and to his children as well. Even their children will look in vain for help and comfort from friends, just as Job has looked in vain to these men. Those who harm their neighbors may end up harming their own children more than they realize.

Finally, Job appeals from these friends to God (Job 17:3). “Lay down now, put me in a surety with you,” means, “Let God take this case into his own hands, and that is enough for me.” He wants someone to guarantee that God will hear and decide the matter. In this way, those whose hearts do not condemn them may still come before God with humble confidence. They can ask him to search them and prove them, trusting him to judge fairly.

Some think Job here is pointing to Christ’s mediation, because he speaks of a surety with God. Without such a helper, he would not dare come before God or plead his case in his court. Even though his friends’ accusations were completely false, Job could not justify himself before God except through a mediator, that is, one who stands between two parties and pleads for them.

Our English notes give this sense of the verse: “Appoint, I pray you, my surety with you, namely, Christ, who is with you in heaven and has taken responsibility for me. Let him plead my cause and stand up for me. And then who is there that can strike my hand?” In other words, who would dare contend with me, or bring a charge against me, if Christ is my advocate? That matches (Romans 8:32-33). Christ is the surety, the one who guarantees a covenant, of the better covenant (Hebrews 7:22), appointed by God. If he takes our case, we do not need to fear what can be done against us.

The good use righteous people should make of Job’s sufferings, from God, from his enemies, and from his friends, is seen in Job 17:8-9. First, notice how the saints are described. They are upright people, honest and sincere, acting from a steady heart with a single purpose. That was Job’s own character (Job 1:1), and he may especially mean such upright people as had been his friends and companions.

They are also the innocent, not perfectly innocent, but people who aim at innocence and press toward it. Sincere faith is gospel innocence, that is, the kind of blamelessness the gospel works in a person. Those who are upright are said to be innocent from the great transgression (Psalm 19:13). They are the righteous, who walk in the way of righteousness. They also have clean hands, kept from the open stains of sin, and when they are touched by human weakness, they are washed in innocence (Psalm 26:6).

Now consider how such people should respond when they hear of Job’s troubles. People would surely ask about him, and everyone would talk about his case. What should good people make of it? In one way, it will astonish them. Upright men will be amazed that so good a man as Job could suffer so deeply in body, reputation, and property. They will wonder that God laid his hand so heavily on him, that his friends, who should have comforted him, only added to his grief, and that such a remarkable servant of God was set aside in the middle of his usefulness. What are we to say to such things? Even while they are sure that God is wise and holy in all he does, they still cannot help being amazed at these works of providence, these puzzles that will not be clear until God’s purpose is fully revealed.

In another way, Job’s sufferings will encourage them. Instead of being discouraged from serving God by the hard treatment this faithful servant received, they will be all the more bold to continue and persevere. This was Paul’s concern, that no good person should be shaken from holiness or comfort by such afflictions (1 Thessalonians 3:3). It was also his comfort, that the brothers in the Lord would grow bolder because of his chains (Philippians 1:14).

They will be encouraged, first, to oppose sin and to reject the wrong conclusions wicked people draw from Job’s sufferings, such as the idea that God has abandoned the world or that it is useless to serve him. The innocent will stir himself up against the hypocrite and will not tolerate such claims (Revelation 2:2). He will stand firm against them, seek the meaning of such providences, and work through these hard questions so he can understand them clearly. He will also defend religion, which is just but often wrongly attacked. The bold attacks of ungodly people should make the friends of religion more courageous and more determined. When a trumpet sounds in the camp, “Who is on the Lord’s side?” it is time to act. When evil is bold, virtue must not hide from fear.

Second, they will be encouraged to keep walking in religion. The righteous person will not draw back, or even pause in doubt, when faced with such a frightening sight. He will keep going with greater steadiness and resolve. Like Paul, he will go forward even if bonds and troubles are waiting for him, and none of these things will move him (Acts 20:24). Those who keep their eyes on heaven as their goal will keep their feet on the path of religion, no matter what difficulties and discouragements they meet.

Third, this will lead them to grow in grace, meaning in holiness and spiritual strength. They will not only keep going, but grow stronger and stronger. From seeing other good people tested, and from their own experience, they will become more lively in duty, warmer in affection, more resolute, and less afraid. The worse others become, the better they will be. What scares others makes them braver. A strong wind makes a traveler pull his cloak closer and fasten it tighter. So those who are truly wise and good will keep growing wiser and better. Progress in religion is a good sign that a person is sincere in it.