Albert Barnes Commentary Job 16:8

"And thou hast laid fast hold on me, [which] is a witness [against me]: And my leanness riseth up against me, It testifieth to my face." — Job 16:8 (ASV)

And you have filled me with wrinkles - Noyes renders this, “and you have seized hold of me, which is a witness against me.” Wemyss, “since you have bound me with chains, witnesses come forward.” Good, “and have cut off myself from becoming a witness.” Luther, “he has made me “kuntzlich” (skillfully, artificially, cunningly), and bears witness against me.” Jerome, “my wrinkles bear witness against me.” Septuagint, “my lie has become a witness, and is risen up against me.” From this variety of explanations, it will be seen that this passage is not of easy and obvious construction. The Hebrew word which is here used and rendered, you have filled me with wrinkles (תקמטני tı̂qâmaṭēnı̂y), from קמט qâmaṭ - occurs only in one other place in the Bible (Job 22:16).

It is there in the “Pual” form, and rendered “were cut down.” According to Gesenius, it means to lay fast hold of, to seize with the hands, and answers to the Arabic “to bind.”

The word in Chaldee (קמט qâmaṭ) means to wrinkle, or collect in wrinkles; and is applied to anything that is “contracted,” or rough. It is applied in the form קימט qâymaṭ to the pupil of the eye as being “contracted,” as in the declaration in Derek ‘Erets, c. 5, quoted by Castell: “The world is like the eye; where the ocean that surrounds the world is white; the world itself is black; the pupil is Jerusalem, and the image in the pupil is the sanctuary.” Probably the true meaning of the word is to be found in the Arabic.

According to Castell, this means to tie together the four feet of a sheep or lamb, so that it might be slain; to bind an infant in swaddling clothes before it is laid in a cradle; to collect camels into a group or herd. Hence, the noun is used to denote a cord or rope twisted of wool, or of leaves of the palm, or the bandages by which an infant is bound. This idea is not in use in the Hebrew; but I have no doubt that this was the original sense of the word, and that this is one of the numerous places in Job where light may be cast upon the meaning of a word from its use in Arabic.

The Hebrew word may be applied to the “collecting” or “contraction” of the face in wrinkles by age, but this is not the meaning here. We should express the idea by being “drawn up” with pain or affliction; by being constricted, or compressed. The meaning is that of “drawing together”—as the feet of a sheep when tied, or twisting—as a rope. The idea here is that Job was drawn up, compressed, bound by his afflictions—and that this was a witness against him. The word “compressed” comes as near to the meaning as any word we have.

Which is a witness against me - That is, “this is an argument against my innocence. The fact that God has thus compressed, and fettered, and fastened me; that He has bound me as with a cord—as if I were tied for the slaughter—is an argument on which my friends insist, and to which they appeal, as a proof of my guilt. I cannot answer it. They refer to it constantly. It is the burden of their demonstration, and how can I reply to it?” His state of mind here is that he could appeal to God for his uprightness, but these afflictions stood in the way of his argument for his innocence with his friends.

These afflictions were the “usual” proofs of God’s displeasure. He could not effectively counter the argument drawn from them in his case. For in all his protestations of innocence, these afflictions stood—the usual proofs of God’s displeasure against people—as evidence against him, to which his friends triumphantly appealed.

And my leanness rising up in me - Dr. Good renders this, “my calumniator.” Wemyss, “false witnesses.” So Jerome, “falsiloquus.” The Septuagint renders it, ”my lie - τὸ ψευδός μου to pseudos mou - rises up against me.” The Hebrew word (כחשׁ kachash) properly means “a lie, deceit, hypocrisy.”

But it cannot be supposed that Job would formally admit that he was a liar and a hypocrite; this would have been to concede the whole point in dispute. The word, therefore, it would seem, “must” have some other sense.

The verb כחשׁ kâchash is used to denote not only to “lie,” but also to “waste away, to fail.” For example, in Psalms 109:24: my flesh “faileth” of fatness. The idea seems to have been that a person whose flesh had wasted away by sickness, as it were, “belied himself,” or it was a “false testimony” about himself; it did not give “a fair representation” of him. That could be obtained only when he was in sound health.

Thus, in Habakkuk 3:17, the labour of the olive “shall fail.” The Hebrew word here means to “lie” or “deceive;” that is, the olive harvest shall belie itself, or shall not do justice to itself; it shall afford no fair representation of what the olive is fitted to produce. The word is used similarly in Hosea 9:2.

It is used here in this sense, denoting “the false appearance of Job”—his present aspect—which was no proper representation of himself; that is, his emaciated and ulcerated form. This, he says, was a “witness” against him.

It was one of the proofs to which his friends appealed, and he did not know how to answer it. It was usually an evidence of divine displeasure, and Job now solemnly and tenderly addresses God, saying that God had furnished this testimony against him, and he was overwhelmed.