Job 16:18

JOB TRUSTS THAT HE HAS AN ADVOCATE IN HEAVEN

"O earth, cover not thou my blood,

And let my cry have no resting place.

Even now, behold, my witness is in heaven,

And he that voucheth for me is on high.

My friends scoff at me;

But mine eye poureth out tears unto God.

That he would maintain the right of a man with God,

And of a son of man with his neighbor!

For when a few years are come,

I shall go the way whence I shall not return."

Here we have a sudden burst of inspiration. Yes, indeed, "We have an advocate with the Father," even as an apostle would declare it in ages to come; but here the Lord suddenly revealed it to his beleaguered worshipper sorely oppressed by the devil and struggling with problems which no mortal man could handle alone. Job will again speak of this "Redeemer" in Job 19; but even here he is sure of his existence and fully confident Of his vindication at last in heaven itself. Note too that here is a clear acknowledgment of heaven's existence and of the certainty of the saints being welcomed there when the probation of life has ended. This writer cannot explain why many writers do not even mention what is written here.

"O Earth, cover not thou my blood" (Job 16:18). This is a reference to the murder of Abel, another righteous man, who like Job, suffered only because he was righteous, and whom Job's conceited friends had apparently never heard of. God said that Abel's blood cried unto God for vengeance (Genesis 4:9); and here Job pleaded that his own innocent blood would cry to God for vengeance, and that the earth would not cover (prevent) it.

"When a few years are come, I shall go away whence I shall not return" (Job 16:22). Kelly, and others, have spoken of this verse as a "special problem." "Job here speaks of death as coming in `a few years'; but everywhere else in the book, he views death as imminent."[6] Of course, some of the scholars are ready to `emend' the place and make it say what they think it should have said. Why "emend it"? Was it not indeed the truth? Job lived to a full two hundred years of age, which, in God's sight, was indeed "a few years." Let men understand that God in these verses spoke through Job.

Job himself might not fully have understood what God revealed through him in this place. The possibility of this is proved by the apostle Peter's words in 1 Peter 1:10-12.