When a few years are come, then I shall go the way whence I shall not return.
Few - literally, 'years of number;' i:e., few, opposed to numberless (Genesis 34:30), "I being few in number").
Remarks:
(1) Heartless talk and mere lip-comfort offered to a friend in affliction only aggravate his distress. What is wanting is true sympathy and tenderness of spirit. The wounded spirit is sensitive, and needs to be dealt with gently and considerately. How "miserable" are all earthly "comforters" as compared with the loving High Priest that is passed into the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, who is touched with the feeling of our infirmities, in all points having been tempted like as we are yet without sin (Job 16:2; Hebrews 4:14-15).
(2) The believer in his sufferings is identified with his Lord and Head. If Job's mockers shook their head at Job (Job 16:4), it was no more than what the Son of God endured, as he expresses it (Psalms 22:7. "All they that see me, laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head "). If Job's foes gaped upon him with their mouth, smote him upon the cheek, and gathered themselves together against him, so also Messiah testifies, "They gaped upon me with their mouths" (Psalms 22:13); I gave my back to the smiters and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair" (Isaiah 50:6); "The objects gathered themselves together against me" (Psalms 35:15). This coincidence, evidently undesigned, is a strong incidental confirmation of the inspiration and deep-lying unity of the several parts of Scripture, which all converge to the one point, "the testimony of Jesus" (Revelation 19:10).
(3) The consideration of the fellowship of believers in the sufferings of Christ (Philippians 3:10) should reconcile them to all which God sees fit that they should endure. Therein they become one with their Lord, and conformed to His pattern in this, as in all other things, so that, amidst the tears which pain elicits, they may still rejoice in their sufferings (Colossians 1:24), and glory in tribulations (Romans 5:3), being made conformable to His death (Philippians 3:10).
(4) One characteristic marks the child of God howsoever many be his shortcomings; like Job (Job 16:19-20) he has one resource to which he invariably repairs at last, the Faithful and True witness in heaven. He appeals from short-sighted and misjudging man to the all-knowing God. When false friends scorn, the believer's eye pours out his tears before his one true and unfailing friend, God. The needle of the compass may tremble and oscillate for a time; but it is sure to point to the pole at last. Peter may, in shameful weakness, deny his Lord for a time, but the heart is in the main true to His Saviour, and he shall at last say, "Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee" (John 21:17).
(5) Our wisdom, when we are in perplexity, and ready to sink in despair, is to cease to plead our own cause, and to ask God to plead for us with Himself (Job 16:21), as well as with them that strive with us (Psalms 35:1-2). We Christians have an Advocate with the Father, in whose hands we may put our cause with perfect confidence. He as God can plead with God: though unable to say anything good of us, He can say all that is good for us-He can plead His own faultless righteousness as man for man-especially for those whom He calls His friends (Job 16:21; John 15:15), and whom the Father has given Him (John 17:9), and for whom He has therefore a right to pray with authoritative power.