7
📚“Is there not a hard struggle for man on earth? And are his days not like the days of a hired man? 2 📚As a servant earnestly desires the shade, and as a hired man looks for the reward of his work,
3 📚So I have been allotted months of futility, and nights of weariness have been appointed to me.
4 📚When I lie down, I say, ‘When shall I arise, and the night be gone?’ And I have my fill of tossing to and fro until dawn.
5 📚My body is clothed with worms and dirty scabs. My skin is broken open, and has become loathsome.
6 📚“My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, and are spent without hope.
7:1-6 This description of Job’s condition can be summed up in two words: misery and hopelessness. According to v 3 Job has been suffering not merely a few days but for a few months.⚜
7 📚Oh, remember that my life is a breath. My eyes will never again see what is good.
8 📚The eyes of him who has seen me will see me no more; your eyes will turn toward me, and I will not be.
9 📚As the cloud is consumed and vanishes away, so he who goes down to the grave 📖 will not come up again.
10 📚He will return no more to his house, nor will his place know him any more.
11 📚“Therefore I will not refrain my mouth. I will speak in the anguish of my spirit. I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.
7:7-11 The words from v 7 to the end of this chapter Job speaks to God. He tells God plainly that he has no further hope of happiness. Only death awaits him. He knows nothing of the doctrine of the resurrection (see note on Job 14:7-12). He feels he has nothing to lose, so he will give full expression to his grief.⚜
12 📚Am I the sea, or a sea monster, that you set a guard over me?
7:12 Job means that he is not some turbulent ocean or wild sea monster that needs restraining.⚜
13 📚When I say, ‘My bed will comfort me, my couch will ease my complaint’,
14 📚Then you frighten me with dreams, and terrify me through visions,
15 📚So that my soul chooses strangling and death rather than my life.
7:13-15 Nights instead of giving rest from suffering added to it, for when he would sleep, dreams or terrifying visions troubled him so that he again longed for death.⚜
16 📚I loathe it. I would not live always. Let me alone, for my days are empty.
17 📚“What is man that you should make much of him, and that you should set your heart on him?
18 📚And that you should visit him every morning, and test him every moment?
19 📚Will you never turn away from me, or let me alone until I swallow down my spittle?
7:17-19 Job’s question is not, why does God have such a loving concern for man (as in Ps 8:4), but, why does God continually want to inflict pain on feeble men? Why does He examine every action and take such care to send punishment and affliction? Job felt that God’s attitude toward him was hostile and wanted God to leave him alone for a while. Actually in the last part of v 18 Job comes near to the reason why calamities have come upon him – testing (compare Gen 22:1; Ps 66:10-12). But he does not pursue this truth. Perhaps at that time in history and without God’s revelation on the subject, and in his condition, he could not have.⚜
20 📚I have sinned; what have I done to you, O watcher of men? Why have you set me up as your target, so that I am a burden to myself?
7:20 Job does not know of any sins he may have committed that should have brought God’s judgment on him. But he asks that even if he had sinned how could that have injured God so much that he became the target for God’s anger.⚜
21 📚And why do you not pardon my transgression, and take away my iniquity? For now I will sleep in the dust, and you will look for me in the morning, but I will not be”.
7:21 Job does not deny that he has sinned at times. But he wonders that there is no forgiveness. He knows he is not hardhearted and unrepentant. He believes the end of his life is near and wants assurance of forgiveness for any sins he has committed. What Job spoke about with longing we can now know that we have – Luke 24:46-47; Eph 1:7; 1 John 1:9.⚜