Job’s visitors demand that he tell a lie against God. They have no objective evidence at all that Job has sinned such that his situation is punishment for some specific error. Instead, they have only their pitiful reasoning. What they cannot absorb is that Job’s conscience is clear, and without some sense of conviction for sin, Job cannot repent. He can only echo the basic truth that all men are fallen and that human sorrow is simply the default for all mankind. No mere human logic can hope to explain the things God does by His power.
In highly poetic imagery, Job describes himself as shattered; the graves call out to him. He’s forced to sit through this mockery, as if his own very real troubles weren’t enough. It would be socially unacceptable for Job to ignore them, so he wonders if God would take his eyes as a bond for his release from suffering, since these guests show no interest in helping him pray for relief. It’s obvious to Job that God has closed their spirits from the truth and he won’t have to endure their presence in Heaven, at least. He implies that each rails at him like someone who sells out a friend for a small bribe, and it will come back to haunt their families.
It comes from the lower culture of superstitious peasants to spit at the sight of someone who has suffered misfortune, because the peasants fear the bad luck will rub off on them. Such are Job’s friends here. It’s an odd Hebrew parallelism in which he describes how his own vision fails under the onslaught of the illness, but what these others see in him is morally darkened. Were they morally upright, they would be too astonished for words. Still, Job is not shaken in his faith.
He then castigates the trio directly, saying not a one of them possessed wisdom from God. While Job’s life has been destroyed, his hopes and dreams forgotten, these men think they can with silly words turn a black hole into a sunny day. The legalistic logic cannot roll back the darkness of the grave. Death is close and Job welcomes every part of it, because it will be relief to escape the three sanctimonious windbags. Then he can escape their empty cheery assurances things would be okay. That kind of hope will not survive passage through the gates of death.
