16:17 although 1 there is no violence in my hands
and my prayer is pure.
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.
1 tn For the use of the preposition עַל (’al) to introduce concessive clauses, see GKC 499 §160.c.
2 sn Job knows that he will die, and that his death, signified here by blood on the ground, will cry out for vindication.
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).
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.
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.”