Overview
Declaring his spirit consumed by mockery and his days vanishing, Job laments his public shame and dimmed sight, dares his friends to offer genuine wisdom, and makes his most audacious move: calling on God Himself to stand as his surety, while asking where any real hope can be found if Sheol is his only dwelling.
Passages
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Job 17
1“My spirit is consumed. My days are extinct and the grave is ready for me.
2Surely there are mockers with me. My eye dwells on their provocation.
3“Now give a pledge. Be collateral for me with yourself. Who is there who will strike hands with me?
4For you have hidden their heart from understanding, therefore you will not exalt them.
5He who denounces his friends for plunder, even the eyes of his children will fail.
6“But he has made me a byword of the people. They spit in my face.
7My eye also is dim by reason of sorrow. All my members are as a shadow.
8Upright men will be astonished at this. The innocent will stir himself up against the godless.
9Yet the righteous will hold to his way. He who has clean hands will grow stronger and stronger.
10But as for you all, come back. I will not find a wise man among you.
11My days are past. My plans are broken off, as are the thoughts of my heart.
12They change the night into day, saying ‘The light is near’ in the presence of darkness.
13If I look for Sheol as my house, if I have spread my couch in the darkness,
14if I have said to corruption, ‘You are my father,’ and to the worm, ‘My mother,’ and ‘My sister,’
15where then is my hope? As for my hope, who will see it?
16Shall it go down with me to the gates of Sheol, or descend together into the dust?”