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.

Verse 7. - But now. These words mark a transition. Job turns from complaints against his "comforters" to an enumeration of his own sufferings. He hath made me weary. God has afflicted him with an intolerable sense of weariness. He is tired of life; tired of disputing with his friends; tired even of pouring out his lamentations and complaints and expostulations to God. His one desire is rest. So I have seen in the piombi of Venice, where political prisoners were tortured by cold and heat, and hunger and thirst, for long weeks or months, and brought to despair, such scratchlags as the following: "Luigi A. implora pace, Giuseppe B. implore eterna quiete." Job has entreated for this boon of rest repeatedly (Job 3:13; Job 6:9; Job 7:15; Job 10:18, etc.). Thou hast made desolate all my company. The loss of his children has desolated his household; his other afflictions have alienated his friends.

But now he hath made me weary,.... Or "it hath made me weary" (u), that is, "my grief", as it may be supplied from Job 16:6; or rather God, as appears from the next clause, and from the following verse, where he is manifestly addressed; who by afflicting him had made him weary of the world, and all things in it, even of his very life, Job 10:1; his afflictions were so heavy upon him, and pressed him so hard, that his life was a burden to him; they were heavier than the sand of the sea, and his strength was not equal to them; he could scarcely drag along, was ready to sink and lie down under the weight of them:

thou hast made desolate all my company, or "congregation" (w); the congregation of saints that met at his house for religious worship, as some think, which now through his affliction was broke up, whom Eliphaz had called a congregation of hypocrites, Job 15:34; which passage Job may have respect unto; or rather his family, his children, which were taken away from him: the Jews say (x), ten persons in any place make a congregation; this was just the number of Job's children, seven sons and three daughters; or it may be he may have respect to his friends, that came to visit him, who were moved and stupefied as it were at the sight of him and his afflictions, as the word (y) is by some translated, and who were alienated from him; were not friendly to him, nor administered to him any comfort; so that they were as if he had none, or worse.

(u) "Dolor meus", V. L. so Aben Ezra & Cocceius. (w) "meam congregationem", Pagninus; "conventum meum", Montanus, Bolducius. (x) Vid. Drusium in loc. (y) "Stupefe isti", Tigurine version; so Jarchi.

7. But now—rather, "ah!"

he—God.

company—rather, "band of witnesses," namely, those who could attest his innocence (his children, servants, &c.). So the same Hebrew is translated in Job 16:8. Umbreit makes his "band of witnesses," himself, for, alas! he had no other witness for him. But this is too recondite.

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