6 "When I speak up, I feel no better; if I say nothing, that doesn't help either. 7 I feel worn down. God, you have wasted me totally - me and my family! 8 You've shriveled me like a dried prune, showing the world that you're against me. My gaunt face stares back at me from the mirror, a mute witness to your treatment of me. 9 Your anger tears at me, your teeth rip me to shreds, your eyes burn holes in me - God, my enemy! 10 People take one look at me and gasp. Contemptuous, they slap me around and gang up against me. 11 And God just stands there and lets them do it, lets wicked people do what they want with me. 12 I was contentedly minding my business when God beat me up. He grabbed me by the neck and threw me around. He set me up as his target, 13 then rounded up archers to shoot at me. Merciless, they shot me full of arrows; bitter bile poured from my gut to the ground. 14 He burst in on me, onslaught after onslaught, charging me like a mad bull. 15 "I sewed myself a shroud and wore it like a shirt; I lay face down in the dirt. 16 Now my face is blotched red from weeping; look at the dark shadows under my eyes,
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Job 16:6-16
Commentary on Job 16:6-16
(Read Job 16:6-16)
Here is a doleful representation of Job's grievances. What reason we have to bless God, that we are not making such complaints! Even good men, when in great troubles, have much ado not to entertain hard thoughts of God. Eliphaz had represented Job as unhumbled under his affliction: No, says Job, I know better things; the dust is now the fittest place for me. In this he reminds us of Christ, who was a man of sorrows, and pronounced those blessed that mourn, for they shall be comforted.