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Commentary on Job 17 verses 1–9
Job's discourse is here somewhat broken and interrupted, and he passes suddenly from one thing to another, as is usual with men in trouble; but we may reduce what is here said to three heads: -
I. The deplorable condition which poor Job was now in, which he describes, to aggravate the great unkindness of his friends to him and to justify his own complaints. Let us see what his case was.
1.He was a dying man, Job 17:1. He had said (Job 16:22), "When a few years have come, I shall go that long journey." But here he corrects himself. "Why do I talk of years to come? Alas! I am just setting out on that journey, am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. My breath is already corrupt, or broken off; my spirits are spent; I am a gone man." It is good for every one of us thus to look upon ourselves as dying, and especially to think of it when we are sick. We are dying, that is, (1.) Our life is going; for the breath of life is going. It is continually going forth; it is in our nostrils (Isa 2:22), the door at which it entered (Gen 2:7); there it is upon the threshold, ready to depart. Perhaps Job's distemper obstructed his breathing, and short breath will, after a while, be no breath. Let the Anointed of the Lord be the breath of our nostrils, and let us get spiritual life breathed into us, and that breath will never be corrupted. (2.) Our time is ending: My days are extinct, are put out, as a candle which, from the first lighting, is continually wasting and burning down, and will by degrees burn out of itself, but may by a thousand accidents be extinguished. Such is life. It concerns us therefore carefully to redeem the days of time, and to spend them in getting ready for the days of eternity, which will never be extinct. (3.) We are expected in our long home: The graves are ready for me. But would not one grave serve? Yes, but he speaks of the sepulchres of his fathers, to which he must be gathered: "The graves where they are laid are ready for me also," graves in consort, the congregation of the dead. Wherever we go there is but a step between us and the grave. Whatever is unready, that is ready; it is a bed soon made. If the graves be ready for us, it concerns us to be ready for the graves. The graves for me (so it runs), denoting not only his expectation of death, but his desire of it. "I have done with the world, and have nothing now to wish for but a grave."
2.He was a despised man (Job 17:6): "He" (that is, Eliphaz, so some, or rather God, whom he all along acknowledges to be the author of his calamities) "has made me a byword of the people, the talk of the country, a laughing-stock to many, a gazing-stock to all; and aforetime (or to men's faces, publicly) I was as a tabret, that whoever chose might play upon." They made ballads of him; his name became a proverb; it is so still, As poor as Job. "He has now made me a byword," a reproach of men, whereas, aforetime, in my prosperity, I was as a tabret, deliciae humani generis - the darling of the human race, whom they were all pleased with. It is common for those who were honoured in their wealth to be despised in their poverty.
3.He was a man of sorrows, Job 17:7. He wept so much that he had almost lost his sight: My eye is dim by reason of sorrow, Job 16:16. The sorrow of the world thus works darkness and death. He grieved so much that he had fretted all the flesh away and become a perfect skeleton, nothing but skin and bones: "All my members are as a shadow. I have become so poor and thin that I am not to be called a man, but the shadow of a man."
II. The ill use which his friends made of his miseries. They trampled upon him, and insulted over him, and condemned him as a hypocrite, because he was thus grievously afflicted. Hard usage! Now observe,
1.How Job describes it, and what construction he puts upon their discourses with him. He looks upon himself as basely abused by them. (1.) They abused him with their foul censures, condemning him as a bad man, justly reduced thus and exposed to contempt, Job 17:2. "They are mockers, who deride my calamities, and insult over me, because I am thus brought low. They are so with me, abusing me to my face, pretending friendship in their visit, but intending mischief. I cannot get clear of them; they are continually tearing me, and they will not be wrought upon, either by reason or pity, to let fall the prosecution." (2.) They abused him too with their fair promises, for in them they did but banter him. He reckons them (Job 17:5) among those that speak flattery to their friends. They all came to mourn with him. Eliphaz began with a commendation of him, Job 4:3. They had all promised him that he would be happy if he would take their advice. Now all this he looked upon as flattery, and as designed to vex him so much the more. All this he calls their provocation, Job 17:2. They did what they could to provoke him and then condemned him for his resentment of it; but he thinks himself excusable when his eye continued thus in their provocation: it never ceased, and he never could look off it. Note, The unkindness of those that trample upon their friends in affliction, that banter and abuse them then, is enough to try, if not to tire, the patience even of Job himself.
2.How he condemns it. (1.) It was a sign that God had hidden their heart from understanding (Job 17:4), and that in this matter they were infatuated, and their wonted wisdom had departed from them. Wisdom is a gift of God, which he grants to some and withholds from others, grants at some times and withholds at other times. Those that are void of compassion are so far void of understanding. Where there is not the tenderness of a man one may question whether there be the understanding of a man. (2.) It would be a lasting reproach and diminution to them: Therefore shalt thou not exalt them. Those are certainly kept back from honour whose hearts are hidden from understanding. When God infatuates men he will abase them. Surely those who discover so little acquaintance with the methods of Providence shall not have the honour of deciding this controversy! That is reserved for a man of better sense and better temper, such a one as Elihu afterwards appeared to be. (3.) It would entail a curse upon their families. He that thus violates the sacred laws of friendship forfeits the benefit of it, not only for himself, but for his posterity: "Even the eyes of his children shall fail, and, when they look for succour and comfort from their own and their father's friends, they shall look in vain as I have done, and be as much disappointed as I am in you." Note, Those that wrong their neighbours may thereby, in the end, wrong their own children more than they are aware of.
3.How he appeals from them to God (Job 17:3): Lay down now, put me in a surety with thee, that is, "Let me be assured that God will take the hearing and determining of the cause into his own hands, and I desire no more. Let some one engage for God to bring on this matter." Thus those whose hearts condemn them not have confidence towards God, and can with humble and believing boldness beg of him to search and try them. Some make Job here to glance at the mediation of Christ, for he speaks of a surety with God, without whom he durst not appear before God, nor try his cause at his bar; for, though his friends' accusations of him were utterly false, yet he could not justify himself before God but in a mediator. Our English annotations give this reading of the verse: "Appoint, I pray thee, my surety with thee, namely, Christ who is with thee in heaven, and has undertaken to be my surety let him plead my cause, and stand up for me; and who is he then that will strike upon my hand?" that is, "Who dares then contend with me? Who shall lay any thing to my charge if Christ be an advocate for me?" Rom 8:32, Rom 8:33. Christ is the surety of the better testament (Heb 7:22), a surety of God's appointing; and, if he undertake for us, we need not fear what can be done against us.
III. The good use which the righteous should make of Job's afflictions from God, from his enemies, and from his friends, Job 17:8, Job 17:9. Observe here,
1.How the saints are described. (1.) They are upright men, honest and sincere, and that act from a steady principle, with a single eye. This was Job's own character (Job 1:1), and probably he speaks of such upright men especially as had been his intimates and associates. (2.) They are the innocent, not perfectly so, but innocence is what they aim at and press towards. Sincerity is evangelical innocency, and those that are upright are said to be innocent from the great transgression, Psa 19:13. (3.) They are the righteous, who walk in the way of righteousness. (4.) They have clean hands, kept clean from the gross pollutions of sin, and, when spotted with infirmities, washed with innocency, Psa 26:6.
2.How they should be affected with the account of Job's troubles. Great enquiry, no doubt, would be made concerning him, and every one would speak of him and his case; and what use will good people make of it? (1.) It will amaze them: Upright men shall be astonished at this; they will wonder to hear that so good a man as Job should be so grievously afflicted in body, name, and estate, that God should lay his hand so heavily upon him, and that his friends, who ought to have comforted him, should add to his grief, that such a remarkable saint should be such a remarkable sufferer, and so useful a man laid aside in the midst of his usefulness; what shall we say to these things? Upright men, though satisfied in general that God is wise and holy in all he does, yet cannot but be astonished at such dispensations of Providence, paradoxes which will not be unfolded till the mystery of God shall be finished. (2.) It will animate them. Instead of being deterred from and discouraged in the service of God, by the hard usage which this faithful servant of God met with, they shall be so much the more emboldened to proceed and persevere in it. That which was St. Paul's care (Th1 3:3) was Job's, that no good man should be moved, either from his holiness or his comfort, by these afflictions, that none should, for the sake hereof, think the worse of the ways or work of God. And that which was St. Paul's comfort was his too, that the brethren in the Lord would wax confident by his bonds, Phi 1:14. They would hereby be animated, [1.] To oppose sin and to confront the corrupt and pernicious inferences which evil men would draw from Job's sufferings, as that God has forsaken the earth, that it is in vain to serve him, and the like: The innocent shall stir up himself against the hypocrite, will not bear to hear this (Rev 2:2), but will withstand him to his face, will stir up himself to search into the meaning of such providences and study these hard chapters, that he may read them readily, will stir up himself to maintain religion's just but injured cause against all its opposers. Note, The boldness of the attacks which profane people make upon religion should sharpen the courage and resolution of its friends and advocates. It is time to stir when proclamation is made in the gate of the camp, Who is on the Lord's side? When vice is daring it is no time for virtue, through fear, to hide itself. [2.] To persevere in religion. The righteous, instead of drawing back, or so much as starting back, at this frightful spectacle, or standing still to deliberate whether he should proceed or no (allude to Sa2 2:23), shall with so much the more constancy and resolution hold on his way and press forward. "Though in me he foresees that bonds and afflictions abide him, yet none of these things shall move him," Act 20:24. Those who keep their eye upon heaven as their end will keep their feet in the paths of religion as their way, whatever difficulties and discouragements they meet with in it [3.] In order thereunto to grow in grace. He will not only hold on his way notwithstanding, but will grow stronger and stronger. By the sight of other good men's trials, and the experience of his own, he will be made more vigorous and lively in his duty, more warm and affectionate, more resolute and undaunted; the worse others are the better he will be; that which dismays others emboldens him. The blustering wind makes the traveller gather his cloak the closer about him and gird it the faster. Those that are truly wise and good will be continually growing wiser and better. Proficiency in religion is a good sign of sincerity in it.
38. After that blessed Job had uttered a sentence relating to the multitude of the wicked, i.e. the body of our old enemy; he directly shifts the sentence to the very leader of them, i.e. the head of all the children of perdition, and returns from the plural to the singular number: for the devil and all wicked people are so one body, that it very often happens that the body is rated with the name of the head, and the head designated by the title of the body. Thus the body is rated with the name of the head, when it is said of a bad man, And one of you is a devil. [John 6, 70] And again the head is designated by the title of the body, when it is said of the apostate Angel himself, A man [Vulg. ‘inimicus homo’] that is an enemy hath done this. [Matt. 13, 28] Thus the prince of all the wicked has some for ‘associates’ and some as ‘children.’ For who are his associates, but those apostate Angels, who fell with him from the seat of the heavenly country? or what others has he as children, saving bad men, who are begotten by his evil persuading in the practice of wickedness. Whence too it is said by the voice of Truth to unbelievers, Ye are of your father the devil. [John 8, 44]
39. So that evil author of error promises ‘prey’ to his ‘associates,’ in that he promises the evil spirits the souls of bad men to be seized at their latter end; and the eyes of his children shall fail, in that while he sets on the aims of men to look for earthly things only, he causes them to love that which they cannot keep for long: for neither can the bent of misdirected love remain, when it appears that both that which he loves, and he himself, who loves it, are tending to nought at a rapid rate. It may also be, that by ‘the associates’ perhaps are understood all those that are most cruel and already full of every kind of wickedness; but by the sons, those who being still deluded by beguiling promises, are being nourished up to increasing of wickedness; that henceforth the devil should as it were by the title of wickedness, have these as his ‘associates,’ who now no longer have whereunto to grow in perdition, while these he has as sons, whom he suckles with promises, that they may go on advancing to worse. But ‘the eyes of his children shall fail,’ in that the aims of the wicked fall to the ground, when all that they go after here, they leave behind, and there suffer without end what is fitted to fill them with grief.
“Set me free and put me beside you, and let the hand of anyone fight against me,” for Christ did not sin, either in thought or deed. He was made to “abide in bitterness” by his passion. He was “set free” by resurrection. He was “put beside” the Father by his ascension, in that having gone up into heaven he sits on the right hand of God. And because, after the glory of his ascension, Judea was stirred up in persecuting his disciples, it is rightly said here, “Let the hand of anyone fight against me.” For the madness of the persecutors did then rage on Christ’s members, and the flame of cruelty blazed out against the life of the faithful. But where should the wicked go, or what should they do, while he whom they persecuted on earth is now seated in heaven? Concerning whom it is yet further added, “You have removed their heart far from discipline. Therefore they shall not be exalted.” If they had been acquainted with the keeping of discipline, and had not ever despised the precepts of our Redeemer, the mere mortal condition of their flesh by itself would have excited them to the love of immortal life. For this reason even the fact that we are subject to corruption in this life is due to our need for learning discipline.… Therefore, insofar as the heart is under discipline, it seeks after the things above; it is not enthralled with transitory good things. But of those whose heart is not under discipline, it is rightly said, “Therefore they shall not be exalted,” for even while they are freed to pursue the lowest enjoyments, they are ever longing for the good things of the earth.
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SUMMARY
Job 17:5 delivers a profound and somber warning from Job concerning the devastating and far-reaching consequences of insincere and deceitful speech, specifically flattery directed toward one's friends. It asserts that such duplicity, motivated by ulterior gain rather than genuine truth, inflicts harm not only on the immediate recipient but also carries a severe, intergenerational impact, causing the children of the flatterer to experience profound disappointment, a loss of hope, or even a premature end to their prospects. This verse powerfully underscores the deep biblical value placed on integrity of speech and highlights the destructive power of words devoid of truth and love, reflecting a principle of moral accountability that extends beyond the individual to affect future generations.
CONTEXT
EXPOSITION AND ANALYSIS
Key Word Analysis
Verse Breakdown
Literary Devices
Job 17:5 masterfully employs several potent literary devices to convey its solemn warning. Metonymy is strikingly evident in the phrase "the eyes of his children shall fail," where "eyes" serve as a substitute for the children's hope, vision, future, or even their very existence. The failing of the eyes thus signifies the utter collapse of their prospects and the bleakness of their future. This profound impact is further amplified by Hyperbole, as the described consequence—the complete failure of the children's eyes—is an extreme and vivid exaggeration designed to underscore the gravity of the parent's sin of insincere speech. It functions as a powerful deterrent, emphasizing that moral failings, particularly in communication, have devastating, far-reaching effects that extend beyond the individual. Moreover, the verse functions as a form of Proverbial Wisdom, articulating a general truth about moral cause and effect, even though it is spoken by Job in a moment of deep personal anguish and ironic commentary on his friends' behavior.
THEOLOGICAL AND THEMATIC CONNECTIONS
Job 17:5 profoundly connects to the broader biblical emphasis on the sanctity of truth and the destructive nature of deceit. God is consistently portrayed as a God of truth and faithfulness Psalm 33:4, and His people are called to embody truthfulness in all their dealings, especially in speech. Insincere words, flattery, and lies are an affront to God's character and erode the very foundation of human relationships and community. The verse's warning about generational consequences resonates with the principle, seen elsewhere in Scripture, that the moral choices of individuals can have lasting impacts on their descendants, not necessarily as a direct, deterministic "punishment" but as the natural, often tragic, unfolding of sin's effects within a family line or community. This underscores the profound responsibility inherent in every word spoken and every action taken, highlighting how personal integrity shapes collective destiny.
REFLECTION AND APPLICATION
Job 17:5 serves as a timeless and piercing challenge to the integrity of our communication in every sphere of life. In an age saturated with curated images, superficial interactions, and the constant pressure to present an idealized self, the temptation to speak "flattery"—words designed to manipulate, gain favor, avoid discomfort, or simply conform rather than convey genuine truth—is ever-present. This verse calls us to a radical honesty, not just with others, but fundamentally with ourselves and before God. It compels us to deeply examine the motives behind our words: Are they rooted in genuine love, truth, and a desire for the flourishing of others, or are they tainted by self-interest, fear of disapproval, or a desire to merely please? The sobering warning about generational consequences reminds us that our choices, particularly in how we wield the immense power of speech, cast long shadows. Cultivating a life of integrity, where our "yes" means yes and our "no" means no Matthew 5:37, is not merely a personal virtue but a profound act of stewardship. It shapes not only our own character but potentially the spiritual and relational legacy we leave for those who come after us. It encourages us to build relationships on the bedrock of truth, even when truth is difficult or unpopular, knowing that genuine love always speaks truth, for the ultimate flourishing of all.
Questions for Reflection
FAQ
Does "the eyes of his children shall fail" imply a literal curse on descendants for a parent's sin?
Answer: While the language is stark and reflects an ancient understanding of corporate solidarity, it is generally understood as a proverbial warning about the natural, tragic consequences that can unfold from a parent's moral failings, rather than a direct, deterministic "curse" in every instance. In ancient societies, a parent's reputation, integrity, and financial or social standing directly impacted their children's prospects, inheritance, and social acceptance. If a parent was known for deceit, treachery, or a lack of integrity, their children could indeed face ostracization, loss of opportunity, or a diminished future. The "failing of the eyes" is a powerful metaphor for the loss of hope, vision, or a bleak future for the descendants, a direct result of the parent's compromised character and actions. It highlights the profound ripple effect of sin, where the moral decay of one generation can indeed lead to the suffering or diminished prospects of the next, as seen in various biblical narratives where the consequences of sin are experienced across generations (e.g., Lamentations 5:7). However, the New Testament emphasizes individual accountability and God's abundant mercy (Ezekiel 18:20), while still acknowledging the societal and relational effects of sin that can extend beyond the individual.
CHRIST-CENTERED FULFILLMENT
Job 17:5, with its stark warning against the destructive power of insincere speech and its generational consequences, finds its ultimate fulfillment and profound resolution in the person and redemptive work of Jesus Christ. While Job laments the deceitful words of his friends and the seemingly inescapable consequences of moral failure, Christ embodies perfect truth, unwavering integrity, and absolute faithfulness. He is the Word made flesh, the very embodiment of truth, whose "yes" is truly "yes" and whose "no" is truly "no" (2 Corinthians 1:20). Unlike the flatterer whose words lead to the "failing eyes" of his children, Jesus' words bring life, hope, and true spiritual vision (John 6:63). He exposes the deceit of the human heart and offers a path to genuine reconciliation with God and with one another, breaking the cycle of sin and its generational effects through His atoning sacrifice on the cross. Through faith in Him, we are not bound by the moral failings of our ancestors or our own past deceptions, but are given new life and a new Spirit, enabling us to speak truth in love and to walk in integrity, establishing a legacy of righteousness rather than ruin (Ephesians 4:25). In Christ, the "eyes" that once failed due to sin are opened to the glorious hope of the gospel (Ephesians 1:18), providing a future and a hope that no human flattery or deceit can undermine, for our hope is securely founded in the unshakeable truth of God Himself.