Once again Job turns from speaking with the friends to speaking to the Lord (Job 16:7). In the previous verse, Job claimed that no matter what he did, he was unable to vindicate himself. If he attempted to speak out in his own defense, he was rebuked and accused of being wicked. If he tried to silently endure his lot, he was accused of being evil, and the presence of his constant suffering testified that was true. Even prayer was of no avail, for the heavens were silent, as if to say the Lord had already spoken in judgment against Job. Thus, with all hope of comfort crushed, Job testifies that God had made him weary (Job 16:7). In other words, Job is without any strength to continue. The Lord had removed any hope of vindication, and Job was at his wits end to present anything new in his defense.
Turning to the Lord, Job addresses him in the second person, saying: “You have made all my company desolate!” (Job 16:7). That is, the Lord had destroyed Job’s whole household. Those who could have stood in his defense are now gone, destroyed. No one, not his children, nor any of his servants were able to stand with him to utter even a single word of comfort or to vindicate him. Job stood alone!
When one is stressed or grieved, he often wrinkles his forehead, and great pain brings wrinkles around one’s eyes, mouth and even to one’s cheeks. Job says that the Lord has filled him with wrinkles (Job 16:8), “which was a witness, and my failure rises up against me…” What is Job saying here? First of all, the word translated failure or leanness in some translations is kachash (H3585) in the Hebrew. It is so translated only here. In the five other places, where it is used in the scriptures, it is translated lies (4 times) and lying (1 time). I believe it refers to Job’s wrinkles as being lying witnesses that testify of his face, vis-à-vis openly and boldly labeling him a great sinner before God and man (Job 16:8). One can hardly read this and not think of Jesus’ own predicament, when false witnesses rose up against him, after God had turned him over to his accusers (Matthew 26:60).
Such is only one of many instances in the Book of Job, wherein he is represented as a forerunner to the great suffering Jesus had to endure, which, I believe is the main reason behind the so-called cosmic drama, initiated in the first two chapters of this book. Job’s condition and the appearance that he has been abandoned by God and left for his enemies to perform their pleasure upon him is understood in the ministry of Jesus and his ultimate betrayal and crucifixion.
Many wonder who Job considers his enemy in verse-9. Is it the enemy (satan) of the first two chapters of this book? Is it Eliphaz, to whom Job is now replying? Whomever others assume to be Job’s enemy/satan, in reality his identity must remain conjecture. As for me, I believe Job considers God to be his enemy. Although Job still trusts the Lord, he, nevertheless, looks upon him as his enemy, the very one who has caused all his troubles (Job 13:15). The Lord had come upon Job as a lion and has torn him in his wrath (cp. Hosea 5:14). Jeremiah’s Lamentations 3:1-10 is very similar to Job’s complaints and often echo nearly verbatim what Job claims the Lord had done to him.
It also seems that David quotes Job in Psalm 22:13 (cp. Job 16:10), which, itself, refers to Jesus (Luke 23:35-36). According to Job, the Lord had struck him on the cheek and compassed him about, just as it was done with Jesus (Isaiah 50:6; Psalm 2:1-2; 35:15; Matthew 26:67; John 18:22), so that Job had come to be a man of sorrows, just as it was so for Jesus (Isaiah 53:3). Indeed, just as Job believed, it was God who had delivered him over to the ungodly (Job 16:11), so, also, it was for Jesus (Romans 8:32)!
Job concludes this portion of his reply (Job 16:12-14) by saying the Lord had made him his target, a mark for his arrows, and he ran upon him as a giant (viz. David and Goliath). Jeremiah responded similarly for what the Lord had done to him and Jerusalem (Lamentations 3:12), and Simeon, the prophet, foretold that Jesus would be set as a sign or mark (a target) that would be spoken against (Luke 2:34), whereas the words of men would be the arrows of God!
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