Chapter Seventeen

The second half of Job’s response to Eliphaz’s speech. 1–9. A request directed toward God to testify to Job’s innocence, and the motivation for it. 10–16. The inappropriateness of friends’ counsel to hope for a better future.

Job 17:1-9. Verse 1 represents a repetition of the thought of Job 16:22, while 2–9 contain a more detailed development of the thought of Job 16:19-21.

Job 17:1. My breath is weak; my days are failing; the grave is before me. Job’s life is coming to an end, fading like a lamp.

Job 17:2. If not for their mockery, then among their disputes my eye would remain at peace. The approach of death does not frighten the sufferer. He would die peacefully if not for the mockery of his friends.

Job 17:3. Stand surety, pledge yourself on my behalf before yourself! Otherwise, who will pledge on my behalf? The all-knowing Lord alone can give Job the ability to die peacefully by clarifying his innocence (Job 16:19). Only He is capable of pledging for the righteousness of the sufferer. “Give a pledge, be surety for me before you; who else will strike hands with me?” (literal translation of this verse). “To strike hands” as a sign of obligation and “to give a pledge” are synonymous expressions (Prov 6:1). Job 17:1-9. The motives behind the request for intercession stated in verse 3.

Job 17:4. For you have closed their hearts from understanding, and therefore you will not let them triumph. Job 17:5. Whoever hands over friends for plunder—his children’s eyes will waste away. Only God and no one else can testify to and pledge for Job’s innocence. Friends are incapable of this. With their theory of earthly retribution, they are unable to rise to the thought of the possibility of innocent suffering. This is beyond their understanding. But God, having deprived them of wisdom (Matt 11:25), will not allow their false view of Job’s sinfulness to triumph, just as He does not permit the triumph of one who condemns his neighbor to misfortune (Job 11:20; Ps 7:16; Ps 56:7; Prov 26:27; Eccl 10:8); “his children’s eyes will waste away” means the traitor will be punished with the misfortunes of his descendants (cf. Isa 20:5). “Waste away” — see Job 11:20.

Job 17:6. He has made me a byword for the people, and a mockery before them. Others are not capable of pledging for Job’s innocence either. In their eyes, Job is a sinner and, as such, a “byword”—that is, an object of ridicule and mockery (Job 16:10-11; 2 Chr 7:20; Ezek 14:8; Ps 68:12), and a “mockery,” in Hebrew “wetophet lefanim,” “a man” whom one spits upon (“tophet” from “tuph”—to spit) in the face, that is, to reproach—the highest insult (Num 12:14; Deut 25:9; Isa 50:6).

Job 17:7. My eye has grown dim from sorrow, and all my members are as a shadow. As a result of such treatment of Job by his friends and all people, his eyes have lost their brightness and grown dim from grief (Ps 6:8), which weakens even bodily strength: “my members are as a shadow” (cf. Ps 30:11).

Job 17:8. The righteous will be astonished at this, and the innocent will rise up against the hypocrite. Job 17:9. But the righteous will hold firmly to his path, and the pure in hands will increase and increase in strength. The sufferings of the righteous, awakening in the pious feelings of astonishment and indignation against the wicked who enjoy happiness (verse 8; cf. Ps 36:1), strengthen faith in God in him (verse 9). Rejected by all (verses 4–6; cf. Job 12:5), knowing that only God can be his defender (verse 3), he cleaves more firmly to Him (cf. Ps 55:2-7). Thus the accusation brought by Eliphaz (Job 15:4) that he lacks fear of God falls, and the words of the devil are not justified, that under the influence of calamities Job would curse God. When “his heart was troubled, he was foolish” (Ps 72:21-22; cf. Job 6:26), but now, having calmed down, he places his trust in God (Ps 72:28).

Job 17:10. Listen, all of you, and come forward; I will not find wisdom among you. The speeches of Job’s friends amount to proofs of his guilt and promises of blessings on condition of repentance. They do not display wisdom in arguments of the first kind (verse 4), nor do they show it in judgments of the second kind.

Job 17:11. My days have passed; my plans—the possession of my heart—are broken. Job 17:12. And they want to turn night into day, to bring light close to the face of darkness. Job’s life, the plans he cherished: “my days will be many as the sand” (Job 29:18), proved to be unattainable (verse 1), and yet they assert that the night of sorrow will turn into a happy day! (Job 5:24-26).

Job 17:13. If I even were to wait, then Sheol is my house; in darkness I will spread out my bed; Job 17:14. I will say to the grave: you are my father, and to the worm: you are my mother and my sister. “If I even wait, then only to have Sheol as my dwelling.” The grave—that is the future on which Job can count. The grave and the worms that fill it are those with whom Job will soon be in closest communion: “I will say to the grave, you are my father, and to the worm: you are my mother and my sister.”

Job 17:15. Where then after this is my hope? and what I await—who will see it? Job 17:16. Into Sheol it will go, and it will rest with me in the dust. There is no hope for life and its joys, nor is it foreseen. It disappears (“goes down into Sheol”—verse 16) just as Job himself does. Instead of the rest on earth promised by friends (Job 5:24), Job faces rest in Sheol. Instead of “and it will rest with me in the dust,” literally from the Hebrew it should be translated: “there, at least in the dust, I will find rest.”