Kommentar zu Ijow 16:8

You have shriveled me up; it has become a witness You have shriveled me up and blackened me for a witness, for it has become a witness to my iniquity, to accuse me.

As is known from the annals of ancient peoples, when they wanted to investigate someone who was suspected of robbery or murder or of committing some such crime but who denied it, they would torture the suspect and look for his reaction. If they saw that he endured the suffering as though feeling nothing, they would conclude that the accusation was false. However, if they saw that he felt the effects of the torture and cried out, they judged the accusation to be true and so they continued to torture him still more. And when, in turn, he cried out still more, they became even more convinced of his guilt. Hence, the witness that they brought against the suspect to show that their suspicions were justified, was the torment that they themselves inflicted upon him.