17:2 [Are there] not {a} mockers with me? and doth not mine eye continue in {b} their provocation?
(a) Instead of comfort, being now at death's door, he had but them that mocked at him, and discouraged him.
17:2 Are not - Do not my friends, instead of comforting, mock me? Thus he returns to what he had said, chap.16:20, and intimates the justice of his following appeal.
17:1-9 Job reflects upon the harsh censures his friends had passed upon him, and, looking on himself as a dying man, he appeals to God. Our time is ending. It concerns us carefully to redeem the days of time, and to spend them in getting ready for eternity. We see the good use the righteous should make of Job's afflictions from God, from enemies, and from friends. Instead of being discouraged in the service of God, by the hard usage this faithful servant of God met with, they should be made bold to proceed and persevere therein. Those who keep their eye upon heaven as their end, will keep their feet in the paths of religion as their way, whatever difficulties and discouragements they may meet with.
