Commentary - Job 17:13-16

Bird's-eye view

In this section of Job's lament, we find him at the absolute nadir of his hope, at least from a human point of view. His friends have been miserable comforters, offering tidy theological boxes that his experience has already smashed to pieces. So, having dispensed with their counsel, Job now turns his face toward the grave. This is not a sentimental or romanticized view of death. This is a gritty, earthy, and raw description of what lies ahead for every man apart from a direct intervention from God. Job is staring into the abyss, and he is not blinking. He describes his expectation of death with a kind of familial intimacy, calling the pit his father and the worm his mother. This is a man who has made his bed in the darkness and is simply waiting to lie down in it. The central question he poses is one of ultimate despair: with the grave as his only inheritance, where can any real hope be found? It is a question designed to hang in the air, unanswered by human wisdom, waiting for a revelation that Job himself will later receive in a stunning fashion.

What we are witnessing here is the stripping away of every earthly comfort and every ounce of self-reliance. Before the true hope of the resurrection can be seen, the false hopes of this world must be utterly dismantled. Job is being driven to a place where the only possible hope is a hope that comes from outside this world entirely. He is articulating the logic of despair so thoroughly that when the logic of faith is finally revealed, it will shine all the brighter against this black backdrop. His words are not the final word, but they are a necessary word, clearing the ground for the foundation that only God can lay.

Outline

Context In Job

Job chapter 17 is a continuation of Job's response to his friends, which began back in chapter 16. He has endured the pious platitudes of Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, and has found them to be utterly useless. They operate on a rigid principle of retribution: God blesses the righteous and punishes the wicked. Since Job is suffering, he must be wicked. It is a tidy system, but it doesn't account for the facts on the ground. Job, maintaining his integrity, knows this is not the reason for his suffering.

So, by the time we get to these closing verses of chapter 17, Job has abandoned any expectation of finding understanding or relief from his human counselors. His focus has turned inward and downward. He is contemplating the end of his life, which he sees as imminent and final. This passage is one of the darkest in a book filled with dark passages. It represents the logical conclusion of a worldview that is limited to what can be seen and experienced "under the sun." If this life is all there is, then suffering and death have the last word. Job's words here are not a statement of faith, but rather a profound statement of the human condition when left to itself. This profound hopelessness is the necessary prelude to the magnificent confession of faith we see later in chapter 19, where Job declares, "For I know that my Redeemer lives." The depth of the despair here in chapter 17 is what gives the later hope its weight and glory.

Clause-by-Clause Commentary

v. 13 If I hope for Sheol as my home, I make my bed in the darkness;

Job begins with a conditional statement, but it is a condition he fully expects to be met. The "if" is rhetorical. His hope is not for deliverance in this life, but for Sheol. In the Old Testament, Sheol is the place of the dead, the grave, a shadowy existence for all who die, righteous and unrighteous alike. It is not the highly differentiated hell of later theology, but rather the common destination of all mankind. Job is saying that the only future he can realistically anticipate is the grave. This is his "home." What a stark contrast to the home he once had, full of life and children and wealth. Now his only expected dwelling is a place of darkness and silence. So he "makes his bed" there. This is an act of resignation, of accepting the inevitable. He is preparing for his long rest, not on a comfortable mattress, but in the cold, dark earth.

v. 14 If I call to the pit, ‘You are my father’; To the worm, ‘my mother and my sister’;

Here Job pushes the metaphor of intimacy with death even further. He is not just moving into a new house; he is being adopted into a new family. He speaks to the "pit," the grave itself, and calls it his father. This is the source from which he now sees himself sprung, the patriarch of his final state. Then he turns to the worm, the agent of decay and corruption, and claims it as his closest female relations, his "mother and my sister." This is a grotesque family reunion. The point is to communicate the totality of his identification with death and decay. He is not just a visitor to this realm; he belongs here. His kinship is no longer with the living, but with the agents of corruption. This is a man who has looked at the biological reality of death without flinching and has described it in the most personal terms imaginable.

v. 15 Where now is my hope? And who beholds my hope?

After establishing his new home and family in the grave, Job asks two devastating questions. First, "Where now is my hope?" The question answers itself. If your father is the pit and your mother is the worm, then hope is nowhere to be found. It has vanished. It is an empty category. All the things he might have hoped for, restoration of his health, his family, his fortune, are now off the table. He has reasoned his way to the bottom, and there is no hope there. The second question, "And who beholds my hope?" is just as bleak. Even if he could somehow manufacture some sliver of hope, who would see it? Who would recognize it? His friends certainly don't. God seems distant and silent. A hope that no one else can see is scarcely a hope at all. It is a private delusion. Job is saying that his hope is not only gone, but it is also invisible, non-existent to any observer.

v. 16 Will it go down with me to Sheol? Shall we together go down into the dust?

This is the final nail in the coffin of earthly hope. Job personifies his non-existent hope and asks if it will accompany him to the grave. Can hope survive death? The implied answer is a resounding no. Hope, as man understands it, is a function of life. It dies when the body dies. He then asks if "we" shall go down together into the dust. The "we" refers to Job and his hope. They will descend together, meaning that his death is the death of his hope. They will be buried in the same grave, turning to dust together. This is the end of the line. There is no appeal. From a purely naturalistic perspective, Job is exactly right. Death is the great extinguisher. What Job does not yet see, but what the gospel proclaims, is that God's power extends beyond the bars of Sheol. The dust is not the final reality. But before Job can learn that, he must first preach the sermon of the dust with unflinching honesty.