Job speaks out in irony to his friends. Eliphaz had begun a second round of debate, so Job says: “Yes, come once more, all of you; restate your argument, if you please. Nevertheless, I shall not find a wise man among you!” (Job 17:10). Folks who are bent on defending a false premise are doomed to repeat the errors they’ve already made . It doesn’t take a genius or a prophet to understand that two errors would never add up to the truth, so let the games begin. Say what you will, but it will all be in vain. Although Job may be ready to hear his friends state their cases once more, and although he would discern whether or not they succeeded in offering him any wise counsel or any words of comfort, he wasn’t holding out much hope for such an eventuality.
The main thrust of his friends’ argument was: ‘Repent, and it will go well with you. Repent, and you will be restored to your former state of life!’ Yet, Job was at death’s door. He knew that the Lord couldn’t possibly be punishing him for his sins, because the end of that eventuality would have been overkill. The Lord would be made out to be an unjust Judge, because Job knew he hadn’t behaved himself so grievously wicked to warrant so great a wrathful response on God’s part. Therefore, what good was the hope his friends held out to him. “Repent?” Repent of what? Job hadn’t committed the crimes they presumed he had done. What’s left? Job’s days are past, and all his plans and hopes of his heart are cut off (Job 17:11). What could his friends possibly say that would restore that to him?
Some claim that the night is darkest before the dawn, but this isn’t so. I waited for the dawn and the sky grows brighter and brighter before the sun peeked over the horizon. Job’s friends were saying that the night was long spent, and the day was ready to dawn, if Job would only repent, However, Job had concluded he hadn’t sinned to warrant such punishment. Therefore, the sun was setting (not rising), and night or death was near (Job 17:12). It was death, not repentance, that held out his only hope of rest from suffering: “If I wait (hope) the grave is my house, and my bed (my rest) is in darkness!” (Job 17:13).
“Thou art dust, and unto dust thou shalt return!” (Genesis 3:19). The ‘land of the living’ is a place Job says he is leaving, and he departs to his true family: the grave, to the dust out of which he came (Job 17:14). “Where, then, is my hope?” (Job 17:15). What Job’s friends offered was a ‘pie in the sky’ type of hope, a deferred hope, unfulfilled and disheartening (Proverbs 13:12). However, Job’s tree of life, as it were, was the grave. Only it promised relief, while the friends’ hope or consolation amounted to nothing but mockery (cp. verse-2). “Who shall see it?” That is, who will see my hope? If it is the hope you offer, no one will see it, especially me!
It seems the friends’ theology pertains only to this life, just as that of the Sadducees of the first century AD pertained to this life only. They had no hope of resurrection, so punishment and rewards must be resolved in the present. Jesus, determined that nothing could come of contending with his enemies. They hoped for a savior who would save them from their present enemies and restore them to their former prosperity, which was opposed to the Gospel. Similarly, Job’s friends believed, or at least contended, that he would be restored to his former glory, if he would repent. Nevertheless, at the end of the day, both Job and his friends would go down to the bars of the pit, vis-à-vis the gates of sheol, hades, or hell. There, both he and they would rest together (Job 17:16). In other words, they faced the same fate as he did, which reminds us once more of Jesus’ fate that he would make his grave with his enemies (Isaiah 53:9, cp Job 16:10 and Psalm 22:8). Finally, just as Jesus’ hope was in resurrection, so Job’s hope continued beyond the grave.
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