Bible Commentary - Job 17

In this chapter, Job finishes his response to Eliphaz by accusing his friends of being mockers.

I find this chapter difficult to understand the exact meaning, because Job uses lots of metaphors and allusions.  That said, the more time I spend reading it the more clear it becomes that Job is speaking indirectly about his friends.

Let’s begin by looking at verses 1-9.  In this section, Job begins by decrying his situation, that his spirit is broken, his life is at an end, and death is waiting to claim him.  But then he starts talking about “mockers”, traitors and people spitting at him.  While he does not reference anyone directly, I think it’s clear from context that Job is speaking about his friends, because his friends are the ones criticizing him and admonishing him to forsake sin.  Job feels betrayed by his friends, because he expected them to support him but he finds their words hollow and lifeless (see e.g. Job 6:14-21).

Since Job is speaking about his friends indirectly, he is also criticizing them indirectly.  See verses 4-5, 8.  There is a symmetry of sorts between what Job is saying about his friends and what his friends are saying about him.  His friends are saying, essentially, that God punishes the wicked and destroys their hope (and by implication, Job is one of those wicked people).  In turn, Job is saying “people who betray their friends will suffer, and their children will suffer too” (v. 5).  Righteous people will be “stirred up” against Job’s friends (v. 8).  In essence Job is trying to say that people who betray their friends will also be punished by God, and his friends are betraying him.

In verse 10, Job resets and goes back to mourning about his recent suffering, with v. 11 being a close parallel to v. 1.  In verse 12, Job talks about “them” making the night into day.  I don’t know exactly what he means but I suspect what he’s saying is that some group of people are telling Job that he can have hope in God’s restoration.  Earlier his friends were telling him that if he repented then God would restore him, so it’s possible this is another oblique reference to Job’s friends.

Verses 13-16 make it clear that Job does not see any reason for hope.  He thinks he is going to Sheol, a common Hebrew term for the resting place of the dead (an afterlife of sorts), and that his hope will die with him.  Basically what this means is that Job thinks the wonderfully hopeful “night into day” thing that people are talking about is not for him.  Someone else may see the night turn into day, but Job thinks he is condemned to eternal darkness; he is “making his bed in the darkness”, preparing to sleep and dwell in darkness rather than return to the light of life.

In the next chapter, Bildad takes his second shot at Job, rebuking him once again.