XVII Job still bemoans himself, ver. 1-7. Encourages good men to hold on their way, ver. 8, 9. Declares he looks for no ease but in the grave, ver. 10-16. Job in this chapter suddenly passes from one thing to another as is usual for men in much trouble.

Verse 1. The graves - He speaks of the sepulchres of his fathers, to which he must be gathered. The graves where they are laid, are ready for me also. Whatever is unready, the grave is ready for us: it is a bed soon made. And if the grave be ready for us, it concerns us, to be ready for the grave.

Verse 2. Are not - Do not my friends, instead of comforting, mock me? Thus he returns to what he had said, chap. xvi, 20, and intimates the justice of his following appeal.

Verse 3. Surety - These words contain, an humble desire to God that he would be his surety, or appoint him a surety who should maintain his righteous cause against his opposers. Strike hands - Be surety to me; whereof that was the usual gesture.

Verse 4. Hid - Thou hast blinded the minds of my friends: therefore I desire a more wise and able judge. Therefore - Thou wilt not give them the victory over me in this contest, but wilt make them ashamed of their confidence.

Verse 7. As a shadow - I am grown so poor and thin, that I am not to be called a man, but the shadow of a man.

Verse 8. Astonied - At the depth and mysteriousness of God's judgments, which fall on innocent men, while the worst of men prosper. Yet - Notwithstanding all these sufferings of good men, and the astonishment which they cause, he shall the more zealously oppose those hypocrites, who make these strange providences of God an objection to religion.

Verse 10. Come - And renew the debate, as I see you are resolved to do.

Verse 11. My days - The days of my life. I am a dying man, and therefore the hopes you give me of the bettering of my condition, are vain. Purposes - Which I had in my prosperous days, concerning myself and children.

Verse 12. They - My thoughts so incessantly pursue and disturb me, that I can no more sleep in the night, than in the day. The light - The day-light, which often gives some comfort to men in misery, seems to be gone as soon as it is begun. Darkness - Because of my grievous pains and torments which follow me by day as well as by night.

Verse 13. Wait - For deliverance, I should be disappointed; for I am upon the borders of the grave, I expect no rest but in the dark grave, for which therefore I prepare myself. I endeavour to make it easy, by keeping my conscience pure, by seeing Christ lying in this bed, (so turning it into a bed of spices) and by looking beyond it to the resurrection.

Verse 14. Corruption - Hebrew. to the pit of corruption, the grave. Father - I am near a-kin to thee, and thou wilt receive and keep me in thy house, as parents do their children.

Verse 15. Hope - The happiness you would have me expect.