“O that one might plead for a man with God, as a man pleadeth for his neighbour!”
"That he would maintain the right of a man with God, and of a son of man with his neighbor!" Job wishes that someone—perhaps the heavenly witness, perhaps God himself—would defend human rights before God. The verse expresses a longing for mediation, for someone to restore just relations between humans and the divine, between humans and each other.
Church Fathers on Job 16:21
Oh! that a man were so judged with God, as a son of man is judged with his fellow! We acknowledge indeed always that we are sinners, yet often, when laid under the rod, we do not know for what sin in particular we are stricken, and we sift ourselves with minute examining, that if we might in any way be able we might trace out the cause of our being struck; and whereas this is for the most part hidden from us, our blindness becomes a load upon us, and we are the more pained…
Nicene & Post-Nicene / Ante-Nicene Fathers translations · public domain
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