This chapter begins Job’s reply to that discourse of Eliphaz which we had in the foregoing chapter; it is but the second part of the same song of lamentation with which he had before bemoaned himself, and is set to the same melancholy tune. I.

Both Job and his friends took the same way that disputants commonly take, which is to undervalue one another’s sense, and wisdom, and management. The longer the saw of contention is drawn the hotter it grows; and the beginning of this sort of strife is as the letting forth of water; therefore leave…

Job’s complaint is here as bitter as any where in all his discourses, and he is at a stand whether to smother it or to give it vent. Sometimes the one and sometimes the other is a relief to the afflicted, according as the temper or the circumstances are; but Job found help by neither, Job 16:6. 1.

Job’s condition was very deplorable; but had he nothing to support him, nothing to comfort him? Yes, and he here tells us what it was. I. He had the testimony of his conscience for him that he had walked uprightly, and had never allowed himself in any gross sin.