“I have heard many such things: miserable comforters are ye all.”
"I have heard many such things; miserable comforters are you all." Job's opening dismisses the friends entirely. Their repeated arguments have become familiar, and their comfort is revealed as misery. The friends have created, not alleviated, suffering through their false theology. This verse crystallizes Job's contempt—they are not merely wrong but actively harmful.
Church Fathers on Job 16:2
I have heard many such things. For the Elect often hear the wrong things of others, as if they belonged to themselves, and guilt is charged upon them by those, by whom the charges so fastened on them are done. Now by this reply, blessed Job denotes that season of the Church, when, under oppression from her adversaries, she is looked upon as cast to the ground by their temporal power. Whence it follows; burthensome comforters are ye all. Whether they be heretics, or whether…
Nicene & Post-Nicene / Ante-Nicene Fathers translations · public domain
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