Job Chapter 17

17:1 "My spirit is consumed. My days are extinct, And the grave is ready for me.

17:2 Surely there are mockers with me. My eye dwells on their provocation.

(a) Instead of comfort, being now at death’s door, he had but them that mocked at him, and discouraged him.

17:3 "Now give a pledge, be collateral for me with yourself. Who is there who will strike hands with me?

(c) He reasons with God as a man beside himself, so that his cause might be brought to light.
(d) And answers for you?

17:4 For you have hidden their heart from understanding, Therefore you shall not exalt them.

(e) That these my afflictions are your just judgments, though man does not know the reason.

17:5 He who denounces his friends for a prey, Even the eyes of his children shall fail.

(f) He who flatters a man, and only judges him happy in his prosperity, will not himself only but in his posterity be punished.

17:6 "But he has made me a byword of the people. They spit in my face.

17:7 My eye also is dim by reason of sorrow. All my members are as a shadow.

17:8 Upright men shall be astonished at this. The innocent shall stir up himself against the godless.

(i) That is, when they see the godly punished: but in the end they will come to understanding and know what will be the reward of the hypocrite.

17:9 Yet shall the righteous hold on his way. He who has clean hands shall grow stronger and stronger.

(k) That is, will not be discouraged, considering that the godly are punished as well as the wicked.

17:10 But as for you all, come on now again; I shall not find a wise man among you.

17:11 My days are past, my plans are broken off, as are the thoughts of my heart.

17:12 They change the night into day, saying 'The light is near' in the presence of darkness.

17:13 If I look for [6] Sheol [See Job Footnotes 6] as my house, if I have spread my couch in the darkness,

(n) Though I should hope to come from adversity to prosperity, as your discourse pretends.

17:14 If I have said to corruption, 'You are my father;' to the worm, 'My mother,' and 'my sister;'

(o) I have no more hope in father, mother, sister, or any worldly thing: for the dust and worms will be to me instead of them.

17:15 where then is my hope? as for my hope, who shall see it?

17:16 Shall it go down with me to the gates of [7] Sheol [See Job Footnotes 7], or descend together into the dust?"

(p) All worldly hope and prosperity fail which you say, are only signs of God’s favour but seeing that these things perish, I set my hope in God and in the life everlasting.