Morning Bible Study: Job 16:17-22

17 although my hands are free from violence
and my prayer is pure.
18 Earth, do not cover my blood;
may my cry for help find no resting place.
19 Even now my witness is in heaven,
and my advocate is in the heights!
20 My friends scoff at me
as I weep before God.
21 I wish that someone might argue for a man with God
just as anyone would for a friend.
22 For only a few years will pass
before I go the way of no return.

Commentary
(the following is from Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary, 1706 -- www.christianity.com)

"Job's condition was very deplorable; but he had the testimony of his conscience for him, that he never allowed himself in any gross sin. No one was ever more ready to acknowledge sins of infirmity. 

Eliphaz had charged him with hypocrisy in religion, but he specifies prayer, the great act of religion, and professes that in this he was pure, though not from all infirmity. He had a God to go to, who he believed took full notice of all his sorrows. 

Those who pour out tears before God, though they cannot plead for themselves, by reason of their defects, have a Friend to plead for them, even the Son of man, and on him we must ground all our hopes of acceptance with God. 

To die, is to go the way from where we shall not return. We must all of us, very certainly, and very shortly, go this journey. Should not then the Savior be precious to our souls? And ought we not to be ready to obey and to suffer for his sake? If our consciences are sprinkled with his atoning blood, and testify that we are not living in sin or hypocrisy, when we go the way from where we shall not return, it will be a release from prison, and an entrance into everlasting happiness."