Ayub 16:17-19

16:17 although ¹  there is no violence in my hands

and my prayer is pure.

An Appeal to God as Witness

16:18 “O earth, do not cover my blood, ² 

nor let there be a secret ³  place for my cry.

16:19 Even now my witness ⁴  is in heaven;

my advocate ⁵  is on high.

[16:17]  ¹ tn For the use of the preposition עַל (’al) to introduce concessive clauses, see GKC 499 §160.c.

[16:18]  ² sn Job knows that he will die, and that his death, signified here by blood on the ground, will cry out for vindication.

[16:18]  ³ tn The word is simply “a place,” but in the context it surely means a hidden place, a secret place that would never be discovered (see 18:21).

[16:19]  ⁴ sn The witness in heaven must be God, to whom the cries and prayers come. Job’s dilemma is serious, but common to the human experience: the hostility of God toward him is baffling, but he is conscious of his innocence and can call on God to be his witness.

[16:19]  ⁵ tn The parallelism now uses the Aramaic word “my advocate” – the one who testifies on my behalf. The word again appears in Gen 31:47 for Laban’s naming of the “heap of witness” in Aramaic – “Sahadutha.”