My face is red with weeping, and on my eyelids is deep darkness,
Job has just called his three friends "miserable comforters," and now he turns from them to describe what grief has done to his body. His friends treated that visible misery as proof of guilt — and this verse is part of his answer.
What the words describe
Job's collapse was total. It was not a confession of guilt.
William KellyHe was brought down to the last degree of misery, and to degradation too, grief upon grief. Nothing lay before his eyelids except the shadow of death. Yet no violence stained his hand, and his prayer was pure.
Note: where the ESV reads "on my eyelids is deep darkness," the older translation quoted here has "the shadow of death."
Tears that admit no crime
Job pairs the weeping with two denials, because his friends had read his suffering backwards — as evidence of hidden sin.
Leslie M. Grant"I have sewn sackcloth over my skin, and laid my head in the dust, my face is flushed from weeping, and on my eyelids is the shadow of death" (vv.15-16). If he had been guilty of violence and hypocrisy, this would be understandable, but he insists that no violence was in his hands and his prayer was pure.
One of the accusations was that Job had given up praying. His ruined face was, in fact, his answer.
William KellyWas it true that he restrained prayer before God? Listen to his own words: "My face is foul with weeping, and on my eyelids is the shadow of death; not for any injustice in my hands: also my prayer is pure." Eliphaz had thoroughly wronged him... It was utterly false that he did not cry to God.
Note: the older translation reads "foul with weeping"; the ESV has "My face is red with weeping."
Comforters who deepened the wound
The weeping in this verse happens in front of three men who came to help. Job says plainly what he would have done in their place.
William KellyHe said, "I have been pouring out my sorrow, but I am no better for it"... He would have been a comforter in sorrow. He would not have been a doctor with no medicine to give. They brought poison into his wounds instead of something to soothe them.
A true statement is not the same as comfort. Christ met sorrow in another way.
Samuel RidoutWhat Eliphaz says is perfectly true. Job had comforted others in times of distress, and he should have borne up under his own trials. And yet would we not expect some words of sympathy from a friend — a "brother born for adversity"? Would not grace always teach us to "weep with those who weep"? The blessed Man of Sorrows did not take sufferers to task in this way. Human sorrow moved Him with compassion, even to tears.
Where the tears went
Cut off from human sympathy, Job sent his weeping upward.
William KellySo his eye turned upward. He could not explain his calamities — or rather, they were not yet explained. Even so, he speaks in confident faith that his witness is in heaven. That witness is God Himself, who testifies on his behalf in those high places. His friends were only mockers. They completely misunderstood his case and hurried to judge him instead of admitting their ignorance. So he can only weep out his sorrow and prayer to God.
Still, something was missing from Job's experience that later generations would be given.
William J HockingThe pious and patient Job lacked someone to share his great sorrow, while his eye poured out his tears to God, and his face was "foul with weeping" (Job 16:16, 20).
Why the darkness was so thick
Job saw God's hand in his ruin, but not God's heart. That is what turned his grief bitter.
William KellyJob was passing through a fiery trial. So he speaks as if God were dealing harshly with him, as if He had mysteriously become his enemy. He breaks out into bitterness, the natural effect of such a thought. The state of the soul must always depend on how one looks, or fails to look, at God. So it is all-important to have and enjoy the knowledge of God as He is. Then the soul is at ease and at home with Him, self-judging and resting in His love.
A deeper sorrow than Job's
One writer sets Job's suffering beside the suffering of Christ. The two are a contrast, not a match.
William KellyJob was brought down to the dust in agony, but Christ was brought down to the dust of death... What was all the frightful state of Job's body compared with the judgment of our sins?
Summary
- Face — The tear-stained face and the death-shadow on his eyelids mark the lowest point of Job's misery. In the same breath he denies any violence in his hands.
- Verdict — His friends read suffering as proof of guilt. That was a complete misunderstanding of his case, and a haste to judge.
- Failure — True comfort brings medicine to a wound, not poison. Grace teaches us to weep with those who weep, not to lecture them.
- Upward — With only mockers around him, Job's weeping became prayer. He appealed to a witness in heaven, God Himself.
- Deeper — Job's darkness came from seeing God's hand without seeing His love. His agony brought him to the dust; Christ went down to the dust of death.