Daily Devotionals
Day by Day Devotional - Year 3 of 5
Devotional: January 17th

Job 16:1-22

"Miserable comforters are ye all", Job replies to his visitors (v. 2). "Look how I would act if you were in my place and I in yours" (v. 4). In order to show real sympathy with someone, we must enter into his troubles as if we were experiencing them ourselves (Hebrews 13:3). Jesus never healed a sick person without first feeling the weight of his suffering. "Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses" (Matthew 8:17). This is why He merits His name of Friend (Matthew 11:19) which Job’s three visitors certainly do not.

In v. 9 Job sees himself struck down by God’s anger. In v. 10 he describes what he is enduring from men. Job’s afflictions were many. But they were nothing in comparison with what Christ suffered, He who "had done no violence" (Isaiah 53:9; cf. v. 17 – JND translation). He submitted to men who were moved by Satan; then in those three hours of darkness on the Cross, He endured indescribable sufferings at God’s hand. Now His shed blood saves believers and condemns the world. He Himself is in heaven for us, the Witness of our justification (v. 19). Before God, He is also the Arbitrator or Mediator for whom Job felt the need (v. 21 – JND translation).