If I had called, and he had answered me; yet would I not believe that he had hearkened unto my voice.
Job 9:16 belongs to Job's answer to Bildad's first speech, which pressed the need for humility. It stands within his reply to the continual accusations of his friends, both stated and implied. Those charges and answers run through Job 8 to Job 27 and close when his friends cease troubling him in the middle of his last reply, so those chapters are best read together for understanding. There his three friends charged him with sin and declared that his sufferings were because of sin. The book takes up the enduring human problems of an overruling providence and of sin and suffering that have perplexed humanity through all ages. In this setting God was disciplining Job and bringing him through the fire of affliction.
The verse expresses Job's anguish and lack of confidence that even if he had called to God and God had answered, he would still not believe that God had truly hearkened to his voice. Afflictions are no proof of sin. People likewise misjudge their fellows in the same way as Job's friends misjudged him.
Job 9:16 belongs to Job's answer to Bildad's first speech, which pressed the need for humility. It stands within his reply to the continual accusations of his friends, both stated and implied. Those charges and answers run through Job 8 to Job 27 and close when his friends cease troubling him in the middle of his last reply, so those chapters are best read together for understanding. There his three friends charged him with sin and declared that his sufferings were because of sin. The book takes up the enduring human problems of an overruling providence and of sin and suffering that have perplexed humanity through all ages. In this setting God was disciplining Job and bringing him through the fire of affliction.
The verse expresses Job's anguish and lack of confidence that even if he had called to God and God had answered, he would still not believe that God had truly hearkened to his voice. Afflictions are no proof of sin. People likewise misjudge their fellows in the same way as Job's friends misjudged him.