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Job 17:6-7
Job describes becoming a public joke and target of spitting, then notes his vision dims and his body fades away.
Meaning in context
Job describes becoming a public joke and target of spitting, then notes his vision dims and his body fades away.
Section 3 of 6
Public disgrace and failing strength
Job describes becoming a public joke and target of spitting, then notes his vision dims and his body fades away.
Movement
Suffering before the living God
Artifact
Wisdom debate and divine answer
Biblical Timeline
Patriarchs
Job context: 2000 BC - 1500 BC
Biblical Timeline
Patriarchs
Job context
Patriarchs / 2000 BC - 1500 BC
Job context is set in the patriarchs, where Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the covenant family.
Scripture Text
Thesis
Job describes becoming a public joke and target of spitting, then notes his vision dims and his body fades away.
Verse by Verse
Made into a public proverb Job says that “he” has made Job a byword among the people. The point is that Job’s name and situation have become a stock example people repeat to shame or warn others.
Treated with open disgust Job adds that people spit in his face. He is not describing mild teasing but a humiliating public act that communicates rejection.
Grief visibly weakens him Job says his eye has grown dim because of sorrow. His suffering is not only internal; it shows up in his ability to see or in the worn look of his eyes (compare dim).
Literary Context
These lines come in the middle of Job’s ongoing reply within the long debate with his friends (Job 16:1–17:16). Job has been describing how his suffering has isolated him and how even close relationships have turned against him. Just before this, he speaks of being surrounded by mockers and worn down by their hostility (Job 17:1–5). Immediately after, he contrasts his own disgrace with the shock it causes to upright people, and he keeps pressing the point that his life is draining away toward the grave (Job 17:8–9).
Historical Context
Job is presented in an ancient Near Eastern, clan-based setting where honor and reputation mattered greatly, and where suffering was often read by observers as a sign of moral failure. In such a world, public ridicule could be as crushing as physical pain, because it cut someone off from community standing and support. Spitting was a recognized gesture of contempt, marking someone as rejected. Job’s language reflects how illness, grief, and social shame could combine, making a person appear to be “fading” in front of others even before death.
Theological Significance
Questions
Keep Studying
His whole body seems to fade He concludes that all his members are “as a shadow,” picturing strength and substance draining away. The image suggests he feels insubstantial, near-vanishing, and close to death.
Job describes a double collapse: public humiliation and personal weakening. Explicitly, he says he has become a “byword” (a stock saying people repeat about him) and that he is treated with open contempt (“they spit in my face”). He then ties that shame-filled experience to visible deterioration: his “eye” has grown dim because of sorrow, and his whole body feels like a fading shadow.
The passage assumes that suffering is not only physical pain; it can include social rejection and loss of honor. In Job’s world, that kind of disgrace could be as devastating as illness because it cuts a person off from respect and support.
1) Who is the “he” who made Job a byword?
2) Is “they spit in my face” literal or figurative?
3) What does “my eye is dim” mean?
The Hebrew lines are brief and use images rather than explanations. The pronoun “he” is not identified in these verses, so interpreters decide based on nearby statements in Job’s speeches about God’s role and human hostility. Likewise, “spitting,” “dim eye,” and “shadow-like members” can be read either concretely (bodily symptoms and actions) or as intensified pictures of shame and decline.
This text contributes a stark, experience-level description of suffering: it includes public scorn, emotional grief, and physical weakening, all presented as connected. It also shows how Job understands his situation as something imposed on him (“made me a byword”), not merely a private misfortune. The verses do not explain the moral meaning of his suffering; they report its social and bodily reality in compressed, memorable images (byword, spitting, dim eyes, shadow-like strength).
byword (lim·šōl)