Where then can my hope be?
1 Then Job answered:
2 I have heard many such things.
What miserable comforters you are!
3 When will your airy words end?
What ails you and keeps you arguing?
4 I too could talk as you do,
if you were in my place;
I could declaim over you
and shake my head at you.
5 I would give you strength,
and comfort you with words.
6 Yet if I talk, my suffering is not eased,
if I refrain, it does not go far from me.
7 I am upset with such ill will;
an evil band
8 takes hold of me.
They stand to testify against me;
and answer me with slanders.
9 They assail me with fury
and gnash their teeth at me;
my enemies lord it over me.
10 With open mouths they jeer at me;
they strike my cheek, and together
they mass themselves against me.
11 God has given me over to sinners
and cast me into the clutches of the wicked.
12 All was well until he shattered me,
but he seized me and dashed me to pieces.
Having set me up for a target,
13 he had his arrows pointed at me,
striking from every direction,
piercing my sides without pity,
spilling my gall on the ground.
14 Like a warrior he bears down on me,
thrusting me unceasingly.
15 I have fastened sackcloth over my skin
and buried my brow in dust.
16 My face is red with weeping,
deep shadows ring my eyes;
17 yet my hands are free of violence,
and my prayer sincere.
18 O earth, do not cover my blood;
let not my cry come to rest!
19 Even now my witness is in heaven
and my defender is on high.
20 Now my prayer has gone up to God
as I poured out my tears before him.
21 Would that one could discuss with God
as he does with his fellows.
22 My years are numbered, and soon
I will take the road of no return.
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Comments Job, Chapter 16
• 16.1 Notice the passage 16:8–17:7 which recalls Isaiah 53 and also the psalms evoking images of the Passion of Christ. When human beings are suffering, they share in the Passion of Christ, whether they know it or not; the confrontation of sin with the justice of God continues in them. God seems merciless in pursuing his creatures, in completely humiliating them, but, in fact, he is removing the roots of our pride.
17:8-10 must be seen as Job’s ironic answer to his friends, “You say that in seeing the wicked’s misfortune, the just praise God’s justice, well then, in seeing me so humiliated, rejoice and say: well done!”