Job 16:21

21. Oh that one might plead Better, O that He ( God) would plead for man with God, as a son of man for his fellow. ויוכח , weyokahh, argue, plead, is rendered by Schlottmann, Ewald, and others, do justice; by Delitzsch, decide; by Wordsworth, Carey, etc., plead. See note Job 9:33. The German mind has caught a glimmering view, as “through a glass, darkly,” of the blessed purport of this passage, thus: “God is regarded as a twofold person, an adversary, and at the same time an umpire;” (Hirtzel;) and “Job appeals from God to God.” (Delitzsch.) “With melancholy quaintness [ !! ] Job says, God must support me against God.” Umbreit. Melancholy there may be, but there is nothing quaint in human needs; for they are as deep as the soul and old as fallen man. Job’s burdened soul was not the first that has poured itself forth in sighs that God might plead with God in its behalf. In the falling tears of Job, germinant with words of hope, faith sees the bow of promise an indirect prophecy of that advocacy which in after times was revealed as existing in Christ. The grand essential features of the Christian scheme are here in outline man’s need of a superhuman mediator that this mediator must be co-equal with God and that our hope of mediation is in the Godhead itself all based upon the postulate which appeals to the universal heart, that kindred nature is vital to successful mediation: “As a son of man pleads for his fellow.”