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And he counteth me unto him as one of his enemies - From the seventh to the thirteenth verse there seems to be an allusion to a hostile invasion, battles, sieges, etc.
7. Not receiving any assistance from friends or neighbors, he abandons all hope of being able to keep the field, escapes with the utmost difficulty, and is despised and neglected by his friends and domestics because he has been unfortunate. "I am escaped with the skin of my teeth," Job 19:20. "My kinsfolk have failed-all my intimate friends abhorred me," Job 19:14-19.
He hath also kindled his wrath - He is angry. Wrath in the Scriptures is usually represented as burning or inflamed - because like fire it destroys everything before it.
And he counteth me unto him as one of his enemies - He treats me as he would an enemy. The same complaint he elsewhere makes; see Job 13:24; perhaps also in Job 16:9. We are not to understand Job here as admitting that “he” was an enemy of God. He constantly maintained that he was not, but he was constrained to admit that God “treated him” as if he were his enemy, and he could not account for it. “On this ground,” therefore, he now maintains that his friends ought to show him compassion, instead of trying to prove that he “was” an enemy of God; they ought to pity a man who was so strangely and mysteriously afflicted, instead of increasing his sorrows by endeavoring to demonstrate that he was a man of eminent wickedness.
“Behold, I cry out of wrong, but I am not heard:
I cry for help, but there is no judgment....
He hath stripped me of my glory,
And taken the crown from my head....
My kinsfolk have failed,
And my familiar friends have forgotten me....
They whom I loved are turned against me....
Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O ye my friends;
For the hand of God hath touched me.”
Ed 156.1
“Oh that I knew where I might find Him,
That I might come even to His seat!...
Behold, I go forward, but He is not there;
And backward, but I cannot perceive Him:
On the left hand, where He doth work, but I cannot
behold Him:
He hideth Himself on the right hand, that I cannot see
Him.
But He knoweth the way that I take;
When He hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.”
Ed 156.2
“Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.” Ed 156.3
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