Renewed outburst of despair at the thought of his sorrowful destiny With a deeper pathos than any that had gone before, this innocence of his and this capacity to form true moral judgments regarding his history (ch. Job 6:28-30) being his starting-point, Job turns to the broad world, to contemplate... [ Continue Reading ]
The connexion is with the preceding verses ch. Job 6:28-30, which express the thought of Job's innocence, and the thought that in spite of his innocence he is miserably plagued. Under this feeling he throws his eye over all mankind, and sees them also doomed by an inexorable destiny to a life that i... [ Continue Reading ]
With slight change the verse reads, As a slave who panteth for the shadow, And as an hireling who looketh, &c. The slave in the heat and under his hard toil pants for the shadow of evening, the day's end; and the hireling looks for his wages, that is, the close of the day; cf. Proverbs 21:6.... [ Continue Reading ]
_made to possess_ lit. _made to inherit_. They are laid on him by the will of another. Job narrows his view here from the lot of men in general to his own. He is one of an afflicted race, but the universal misery does not alleviate his own, it rather increases it. That loss is common would not make... [ Continue Reading ]
A graphic account of his condition under his malady. Job 7:4 should probably be rendered, When I lie down I say, When shall I arise? And the night stretches out, and I am full of tossings, &c. At evening he longs for morning (Deuteronomy 28:67), but the night seems to him to prolong itself, and h... [ Continue Reading ]
_with worms and clods of dust_ His ulcers bred worms; and the hard earthy-like crust of his sores he calls lumps of dust. _is broken, and become loathsome_ Rather, MY SKIN CLOSES AND BREAKS AFRESH the allusion being to the alternate gathering and running of his sores, which went on continually. Jo... [ Continue Reading ]
By his "days" is meant his life as a whole, not his individual days, which are far from passing quickly (Job 7:4); and "are spent" means, have been consumed (as Job 7:9), or, are come to an end (Genesis 21:15). He regards his life as near a close, for his disease was incurable; this is expressed by... [ Continue Reading ]
This feeling of the hopeless brevity of his life overwhelms the sufferer, and he turns in supplication to God, beseeching Him, the Everlasting, to think how swiftly his mortal life passes, cf. Psalms 102:11. _see good_ i. e. happiness or prosperity. He means in this life; but then the state of the... [ Continue Reading ]
_are upon me, and I am not_ Perhaps rather, SHALL BE UPON ME AND I SHALL NOT BE; God will look for him, enquiring, it may be, after the work of His hands, but he shall be gone; cf. Job 7:21.... [ Continue Reading ]
_goeth down to the grave_ Heb., _down to She"ôl_, the place of departed persons. This is never in the Old Testament confounded with the grave, although, being an ideal place and state, the imagination often paints it in colours borrowed from the grave and the condition of the body in death; cf. ch.... [ Continue Reading ]
Job heaps image upon image to set before himself and the eye of God the brevity of life, the weaver's shuttle (Job 7:6), the wind (Job 7:7), the morning cloud (Job 7:9; Hosea 6:4), ending with a pathetic reference to his home which shall see him no more (Job 7:10). These regrets altogether overmaste... [ Continue Reading ]
First, he asks with bitter irony if he is _the sea or the monster of the sea_, that he must be watched and subdued with plagues lest he prove dangerous to the universe? The proud waves of the sea must be confined and a bound which they cannot pass set to them (ch. Job 38:8 _seq_.; Jeremiah 5:22); ha... [ Continue Reading ]
Further description of the plagues employed to subdue him. _ease my complaint Complaint_always means complaining, not malady; ch. Job 9:27; Job 10:1; Job 21:4; Job 23:2. When he looks for sleep That knits up the ravelled sleeve of care, Balm of hurt minds, instead of finding it he is scared with... [ Continue Reading ]
Consequence of the preceding, Job 7:14. _chooseth strangling_ A sense of choking is one of the accompaniments of the disease, which is said to end sometimes in actual suffocation. Job refers to this symptom, saying that he is driven to desire that it might be really fatal. The parallel word _death_... [ Continue Reading ]
So keenly does he realize the misery of his condition and the intolerable painfulness of his life, that he breaks out into a passionate cry that he hates and is weary of life _I loathe_it. The object of his loathing is not expressed, but it is rather life in general, as the words, _I would not live... [ Continue Reading ]
Second, Job asks, If man be not too mean a thing for God thus to busy Himself with and persecute? cf. ch. Job 14:3. _set thine heart_ that is, thy _mind_; as _magnify_means, to think great, to consider of importance.... [ Continue Reading ]
The words of this verse recall Psalms 8:5; Psalms 144:3, the former of which passages at least must have been in the Author's mind. The admiring gratefulness of the Psalmist that God condescended to visit man and gave him such a place in His estimation is parodied by Job, and the Psalmist's words ar... [ Continue Reading ]
_depart from me_ lit. _look away from me_; an impatient demand that God would turn away His plaguing glance; cf. "watcher of men," Job 7:20. _swallow down my spittle_ A proverbial phrase like "twinkling of an eye," signifying _a moment_, as we might say "till I let over"; cf. "draw my breath," ch.... [ Continue Reading ]
The first half of the verse reads, Have I sinned: what do I unto thee, O thou watcher of men? _I have sinned_ Rather as above, HAVE I SINNED; the words being put as a supposition, equivalent to, _if I have sinned_. Job makes the supposition, he hardly concedes the fact, which is not meantime the po... [ Continue Reading ]
Third, Job makes the supposition that he has sinned, and asks, how such a thing can affect God? and, why He does not take away his sin instead of plaguing him unto death because of it?... [ Continue Reading ]
_seek me in the morning_ Rather, SEEK ME, simply, or, SEEK ME EARNESTLY; the addition "in the morning" (just as "betimes," ch. Job 8:5) rests upon a mistaken etymology. Job concludes his speech by a pathetic reference to what must be the speedy issue of God's stringent watching of him: he will lie d... [ Continue Reading ]