\\INTRODUCTION TO JOB 16\\

This chapter and the following contain Job's reply to the preceding
discourse of Eliphaz, in which he complains of the conversation of his
friends, as unprofitable, uncomfortable, vain, empty, and without any
foundation, \\#Job 16:1-3\\; and intimates that were they in his case and
circumstances, tie should behave in another manner towards them, not
mock at them, but comfort them, \\#Job 16:4,5\\; though such was his
unhappy case, that, whether he spoke or was silent, it was much the
same; there was no alloy to his grief, \\#Job 16:6\\; wherefore he turns
himself to God, and speaks to him, and of what he had done to him, both
to his family, and to himself; which things, as they proved the reality
of his afflictions, were used by his friends as witnesses against him,
\\#Job 16:7,8\\; and then enters upon a detail of his troubles, both at
the hands of God and man, in order to move the divine compassion, and
the pity of his friends, \\#Job 16:9-14\\; which occasioned him great
sorrow and distress, \\#Job 16:15,16\\; yet asserts his own innocence, and
appeals to God for the truth of it, \\#Job 16:17-19\\; and applies to him,
and wishes his cause was pleaded with him, \\#Job 16:20,21\\; and
concludes with the sense he had of the shortness of his life,
\\#Job 16:22\\; which sentiment is enlarged upon in the following chapter.