Lecture 2 — The promises of his friends are vain

^16:21^ My wordy friends, my eye drips for God.

^16:22^ And would that man were judged by God as the son of man is judged by his colleague!

^16:23^ Behold, the short years pass away and I walk a path by which I will not return.

266. My wordy friends. After Job described the greatness of his adversity (Job 16:14), his humility (Job 16:16), and his innocence (Job 16:18), he proceeds further to reprove the vain consolation which his friends never tired of repeating to him, about recovering the hope of temporal prosperity. As Eliphaz said above, how great is God that he should console you (Job 15:11). So he intends to show the vain character of this consolation, and he begins with the words, my wordy friends, for their promises are vain words. My consolation is not in recovering things, but in acquiring the enjoyment of God, and expressing this he says, my eye drips for God; that is, it weeps because of the desire of God, according to the Psalm, my tears have been for me my bread by night and by day, when I hear it said daily, where is your God? (Ps 41:4)

267. To explain what he had said, he continues, and would that man were judged by God as the son of a man is judged by his colleague. For a man is judged by his own colleague when one is actually present to the other and they express their arguments to each other. He desires, therefore, to be in this presence to God and to know the reasons for the divine works and judgments in which human happiness consists. His consolation was in this hope, not in the vain words of his friends, by which they promised the recovery of temporal prosperity. So to show the vanity of this promise he adds, behold the short years pass away, because man lives for a short time, as he had said above (Job 14:1). Job had already passed through a great part of the time of his life, and so few years remained for him in which, if there were prosperity, he would not derive much consolation because of the shortness of the time. Some men believed that after death man would return again to the same course of this present life, and so it would be possible for Job to be consoled in the hope of recovering earthly prosperity at least in that future life. So to reject this he then says, and I walk a path by which I will not return. For man in this mortal life tends through the process of aging to death, and there cannot be a repetition in this process, so that man would be a boy again and pass through all ages of this life.