Job 16:11 - Exposition

God hath delivered me to the ungodly . All that Job had suffered at the hands of wicked men, the gibes of his "comforters," the insults and "derision ' of "base men" ( Job 30:1 , Job 30:8-10 ), the desertion of many who might have been expected to have come to his aid, being by God's per-minion, is attributed by Job to God himself, who has "delivered" him up to these "ungodly" ones, and permits them to add to and intensify his sufferings. He was not so ruthlessly treated as his great Anti-type; he was not bound with thongs, or crowned with thorns, or smitten with a reed, or scourged, or crucified—even the smiting on the cheek, spoken of in verse 10, was probably metaphorical; but he suffered, no doubt, grievously, through the scorn and contumely that assailed him, through his friends' unkindness, and his enimies' insolent triumph, and the rude jeers of the " abjects '" who made him their "song" and their "byword" ( Job 30:9 ). And turned me over into the hands of the wicked . Job speaks as if God had wholly given him up, made him over to the wicked, to deal with him exactly as they chose. This, of course, was not so. If the malevolence of Satan was limited by the Divine will ( Job 1:12 ; Job 2:6 ); so, much more, would the malevolence of man be limited.