What is the meaning of Job 17:6? He has made me • Job attributes the change in his social standing directly to God: “He has made me…” (Job 17:6a). • This echoes Job 1:21, where Job acknowledged God’s sovereign hand in both giving and taking away. • Job’s friends believe sin must be the cause (Job 4:7), yet Job insists that even in righteousness God can allow testing (Job 2:3). • Psalm 44:13–14 similarly records the faithful suffering public humiliation that God has permitted. a byword among the people • A “byword” means a proverb or punchline—someone held up as a warning or joke (Deuteronomy 28:37; Psalm 69:11). • God warned Israel that unfaithfulness would make them “an object of scorn” (1 Kings 9:7), yet Job experiences it though blameless (Job 1:1). • Job’s name becomes shorthand for calamity, much like Paul being called “the scum of the earth” (1 Corinthians 4:13). • This reveals that society often misreads suffering, assuming divine judgment when God may be refining faith (James 1:2–4). a man in whose face they spit • Spitting conveys utter contempt (Numbers 12:14). Job is treated as cursed, not merely pitied (Job 30:10). • Isaiah 50:6 foretells Messiah enduring the same disgrace, fulfilled when soldiers “spat on Him” (Matthew 27:30). • Job’s experience foreshadows Christ: both righteous sufferers publicly shamed yet vindicated by God (Philippians 2:8–9). • For believers, ridicule is no proof of divine displeasure; it can signify sharing in Christ’s sufferings (1 Peter 4:14). summary Job 17:6 shows the depth of Job’s humiliation: God has allowed him to become a public proverb and target of spit—symbols of mockery and rejection. The verse teaches that even the righteous may be scorned, yet God remains sovereign and purposeful. When believers face similar contempt, they can remember Job’s endurance and Christ’s greater suffering, confident that God sees, cares, and will one day reverse every shame. |
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