Hello everyone! Welcome to today’s Bible study on Job 17 – Job seeks relief. According to Bible scholars, the events of the book of Job took place approximately before 2100 B.C.
I encourage you to turn to Job 17 in your Bible. Kindly invite the Holy Spirit to guide you as you read and study Job 17 with me. I mention this in all the Bible Studies because it is through the Holy Spirit that we get fresh revelation and knowledge to understand the word of God. I am using the New King James Version (NKJV) of the Bible, just in case you want to know. All the scriptures that you find highlighted in purple in this post are from the NKJV.
In the Bible Study on Job 16, we read about Job rebuking his pitiless friends and calling them miserable comforters. Well, in this Bible study on Job 17, we will read about Job praying for relief.
Without any further delay, let us begin the Bible Study on Job 17, shall we?
Job’s Spirit Was Broken
1 “My spirit is broken,
My days are extinguished,
The grave is ready for me.
2 Are not mockers with me?
And does not my eye dwell on their provocation?
In Verses 1-2 of Job 17, Job says that his spirit is broken and his days are ending. He is aware of his fast approaching death and the grave.
He is surrounded by mockers (including friends who had come to comfort him) and he faces their provocation everyday. They mock and ridicule Job and create so much agony for him while he is already suffering.
Observation
A person with illness is most likely nervous, scared and if someone were to mock them for their illness or their situation, it does not help them. It only adds more fuel to the fire. And it is harmful to their health as mental agony only makes the illness worse. And Job’s friends did exactly that to Job, until now, as we have seen in all the previous chapters. They refused to understand him. In an attempt to help him (they might have been sincere, only God knows), they made things even more worse for him. All Job wanted was for someone to comfort him and listen to him.
Job Asks God For A Promise
3 “Now put down a pledge for me with Yourself.
Who is he who will shake hands with me?
4 For You have hidden their heart from understanding;
Therefore You will not exalt them.
5 He who speaks flattery to his friends,
Even the eyes of his children will fail.
In Verses 3-5 of Job 17, Job asks God a promise/pledge for himself to back him up and to take his side (to support his cause). For, no human, including Job’s friends, have taken his side. All were against him. Job wants God to be on his side and asks him for a pledge. He said that God had hidden his friend’s hearts, and all those who pass by, from understanding. That is why no matter how much or how many times he tries to explain his suffering, his innocence and his situation they don’t understand. He asks God to not let them win over him. In other words, he asks God to not let them be right (those who pass by and his friends) and overpower him.
He also says that a person who speaks flattery to his friends to gain something from them, will reap the harvest of their children going blind.
How People Treated Job
6 “But He has made me a byword of the people,
And I have become one in whose face men spit.
7 My eye has also grown dim because of sorrow,
And all my members are like shadows.
8 Upright men are astonished at this,
And the innocent stirs himself up against the hypocrite.
9 Yet the righteous will hold to his way,
And he who has clean hands will be stronger and stronger.
In Verses 6-9 of Job 17, Job talks about how God has made his name to be a curse word among the people and a name which people mock. People hated Job so much that they even spit on his face. They treated him as garbage because he was in sackcloth and covered in dust and breaking out in fresh wounds oozing with pus. Job’s eyes had become dim with weeping and he could not longer see well through his tears. All his vital organs were rapidly deteriorating too. Upright men were shocked at Job’s condition. They could not understand how such a thing could happen to Job, a righteous man. The innocent people stirred themselves against the hypocrite and the godless people. However, righteous men will always maintain their integrity and those whose hands had done no wrong will only become stronger everyday.
Job Finds No Wise Man Around Him
10 “But please, come back again, all of you,
For I shall not find one wise man among you.
11 My days are past,
My purposes are broken off,
Even the thoughts of my heart.
12 They change the night into day;
‘The light is near,’ they say, in the face of darkness.
In Verses 10-12 of Job 17, Job calls all the people who mocked him to return to him again. Even if they did return, there was not a man who was wise among them, in his eyes. Job’s days were passing by swiftly. He saw no purpose in living. His wife was the first to tell him to curse God and die. All of his children were dead. His servants were dead. Most of his cattle were either dead or stolen. And he was suffering a severe illness in his body that he couldn’t handle anymore. It was an illness that was rotting away his flesh causing a putrid smell and many were appalled and refused to go near him. A man could only take so much. He had no more good thoughts in his heart about hope or living a good life again.
Those who pass by and those who were with him changed the night into day. They told him that the light was near and soon his troubles will be over even though they knew very well that it was far from the truth. They saw no hope for Job yet they lied to him giving him false hope. However, Job knew better. He knew that they were lying and he felt mocked.
Job Feels Hopeless
13 If I wait for the grave as my house,
If I make my bed in the darkness,
14 If I say to corruption, ‘You are my father,’
And to the worm, ‘You are my mother and my sister,’
15 Where then is my hope?
As for my hope, who can see it?
16 Will they go down to the gates of Sheol?
Shall we have rest together in the dust?”
In Verses 13-16 Job questions hope. If he were to wait for his grave and consider the grave as his house (when he is dead) and if he were to make his bed in the darkness (there is no light inside the tomb) and if he called his decaying body (when he is dead) as his father and the worm that eats his body as mother and sister, what hope does he have in that?
He compares his decaying body and the worm to his family as they would be the only things close to him in the grave. If his only hope is in the grave and the corruption of his body and the worms of decay, then, is that even hope? And even if he did have hope, who can see his hope in the grave or who could help Job to live in hope (by bringing him back from the pit and by making him to live again) ?
Job concludes that whatever little hope he has in life will go down with him to Sheol (the place of the dead). He and his hope would rest together in the dust.
Conclusion
This brings us to the end of the bible study on Job 17. Job’s hopelessness is palpable through every word he utters in Job 17. I hope you learnt something out of this Bible study and you found it helpful.
If you have any comments or questions for me, kindly leave them in the comments box below. I highly appreciate it. I will get back to you as soon as I can.
Until Next Time!