Job 16:1
in Job 16Then Job answered:
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
Then Job answered and said,
KJV
Then Job answered and said,
⋯
This verse in Job 16
Commentary
5 notes on this verseThis site's exposition
Then Job answered
on Job 16:1-5
Job opens his reply by naming the friends outright, "miserable comforters are you all", the book's only use of the phrase and his plainest verdict. He chooses the harder path instead, "I would encourage you with my mouth", naming the comfort he needed and did not receive.
The record, by era
The Church Fathers2 voices
You are "comforters" but very wicked ones. No word of yours is for the good, but they are all for the bad. You teach, you give advice, and you propose not how ordeals must be avoided, but how [new] ordeals will be obtained from affliction! …
Since Eliphaz speaks so, as if the matter were of extraordinary importance, and talks as if his speech derived from the wisdom of the ancestors, Job also resumes the argument he had used at the beginning. Is what you say not evident, he says? Therefore, since you speak superficially and utter what comes to your mind without checking your words, do not be annoyed with me if I express the thoughts of my mind.
The Medieval Church1 voice
Eliphaz had spoken harshly against Job in his answer, and so Job accuses him of unfitting consolation in the beginning of his speech. First, because both he and his friends frequently repeat the same things and so he says, "I have often heard such things," …
The Puritans and the Awakening1 voice
Then Job answered and said. As soon as Eliphaz had done speaking, Job stood up, and made the following reply.
The words behind it
3 Hebrew wordsEvery Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.
| Hebrew | Sound | Meaning | Word study | In the Bible |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| וַיַּ֥עַן | vaiyaan | and he answered | H6030 → | 331 times |
| אִיּ֗וֹב | ʾiyov | Job | H347 → | 58 times |
| וַיֹּאמַֽר׃ | vaiyomar | and he said | H559 → | 5305 times |
וַיַּ֥עַןand he answered
vaiyaanH6030 →331 times
אִיּ֗וֹבJob
ʾiyovH347 →58 times
וַיֹּאמַֽר׃and he said
vaiyomarH559 →5305 times
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
About Job
Who and where
1 name in this verse with a page on the site.
This page draws on Hesychius of Jerusalem, HOMILIES ON JOB 19.16.2B; John Chrysostom, COMMENTARY ON JOB 16:1-2; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763); Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Job.