I called my servant, and he gave [me] no answer; I intreated him with my mouth.
Ver. 16. I called my servant, and he gave me no answer] Though I lay under greatest sores and sorrows, and called them to help me, yet such was their impudence and inhumanity, that they would not vouchsafe an answer. Considera hic quanta crux sit, saith Brentius, a sua propria familia despici et rideri; Consider with me, here, what an affliction it is for a man to be despised and derided by his own family. A servant's eye should look to the hands of his master, and the eye of a maiden to the hand of her mistress, to observe the motion thereof, and to pick out the meaning, Psalms 123:2. Accounting their governors worthy of all honour, 1 Timothy 6:1, as the centurion's obsequious servants did, Matthew 8:9. Sed sic fere sunt servorum ingenia, But so wild are the servants of nature, saith Merlin here. But such is the condition of many servants today, that they will do no more than needs must. Job's would neither say nor do.
I intreated him with my mouth] As a suppliant to my servant, who lived upon me, but would do nothing for me, though I humbly besought him. Here we may see, saith Vatablus, that when God is angry with a man all doeth cross with him; it is good for us in this case to reflect and see whether we have not served God in this sort. Alphonsus, that renowned king, in a speech to the pope's ambassador, professed that he did not so much wonder at his servants' unthankfulness and undutifulness to him as at his own to God.