Job 17
Job: Good people treat me badly
One step to the grave
1My spirit is broken.I’m as good as dead.
There’s just one more thing to do:
Get me to the grave on time.
2I’m tired of listening to insults.
I’m weary of looking at angry faces.
3God, promise to stand by me.
Who else would?
4I can’t reason with these people anymore.
You’ve turned them against me.
You don’t get any points for that. [1]
5These people are like the guy who invites you to a party
When your kids are back home, starving.
I’m spit’s bullseye
6God, you turned me into a punchline,The laugh at the end of demeaning jokes.
These people spit on me
Because of what you did to me.
7Grief and its tears blur my vision
While my body shrivels into a shadow.
8Good and godly people look at me in disgust.
And they treat me like the sinner they think I am. [2]
9They go on their merry way,
Stronger in their faith
Because they don’t want to end up like me.
10Well, here they come again
For another walk by.
Not a brain with sense among them.
My time is up
11History is about all I have left.My future is busted,
My dreams are broken.
12I once dreamed in the darkness
For the daylight ahead.
But now, what’s the difference,
Sunrise or sunset? [3]
Job’s invitation to join him in the ground
13Who cares if I sayI’m going home to the grave, [4]
Where I’ll lie on a cushion of darkness?
14Who cares if I say
The Hole in the dirt is my dad,
And the worms are my mom and sister?
15Down there, where should I go for hope?
Where will I find my happy place?
16Would anyone like to join me
In the place of the dead,
On a short trip back into dust?
Footnotes
It’s not clear here who Job is talking about. It’s either Job’s close-minded friends or God. The phrase might mean Job is saying God won’t let those neighbors beat him, “you won’t let them triumph.” But Job has been ripping into God during this speech. And this could be another dig at him, as in, “there’s no honor in what you did.”
Many Bible scholars say Job wasn’t talking about himself here, but that he was talking about how good people hate what Job’s friends were doing to him. No, that doesn’t Job at this point in the story. Job is ticked at God. He seems to be saying righteous people think he sinned terribly to deserve tragedy like this. So they give him elbow room and loogies from the back of the throat.
Again, scholars differ on who they think Job was talking about. Some say Job’s visitors were encouraging him by saying this darkness would give way to brighter days. Yet some people would wish for brighter scholars. Disputes among scholars get a little testy sometimes. Other students of the Bible say it’s best to take this verse as continuation of what Job has been saying all along here.
Literally Sheol, a Hebrew word for the place of the dead. Greeks later translated the word as “Hades.”
Discussion Questions
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