Weariness Under Affliction
Joseph Caryl. Job 16:7 But now he has made me weary: you have made desolate all my company. The word "he" is not in the original. Some understand it of his grief and sorrow, and read thus, "And now it hath made me weary," or, my pain hath tired me. Others understand it of what had been spoken by his friends; your tedious discourses, and severer censures, have quite spent my spirits, and made me weary. Our translation leads us to a person, and our interpretation leads us to God. Job everywhere acknowledges that God was the author and orderer of all his sorrows. Weariness of mind is referred to, and it is the most painful weariness. 1. A state of affliction is a wearisome estate. Suffering wearies more than doing; and none are so weary as those who are wearied with doing nothing. 2. Some afflictions are a weariness both to soul and body. There are afflictions which strike right through, and there are afflictions which are only skin deep. 3. Some afflictions do not only afflict, they unsettle the mind. They unsettle not only the comforts, but the powers and faculties of it. A man under some afflictions can scarce speak sense while he acts faith, or do rationally while he lives graciously. 4. A godly man may grow extremely weary of his afflictions. The best cannot always rejoice in temptations, nor triumph under a cross. True believers, as they have more patience in doing, so in suffering; yet even their patience doth not always hold out; they, as Job, speak sometimes mournfully and complainingly. (Joseph Caryl.) Parallel Verses KJV: But now he hath made me weary: thou hast made desolate all my company. WEB: But now, God, you have surely worn me out. You have made desolate all my company.