Job 7:1-10

5. God decrees what man receives. (Job 7:1-10)

TEXT 7:1-10

7 Is there not a warfare to man upon earth?

And are not his days like the days of a hireling?

2 As a servant that earnestly desireth the shadow,

And as a hireling that looketh for his wages:

3 So am I made to possess months of misery,

And wearisome nights are appointed to me.

4 When I lie down, I say,

When shall I arise, and the night be gone?
And I am full of tossings to and fro onto the dawning of the day.

5 My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust;

My skin closeth up, and breaketh out afresh.

6 My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle.

And are spent without hope.

7 Oh remember that my life is a breath:

Mine eye shall no more see good.

8 The eye of him that seeth me shall behold me no more;

Thine eyes shall be upon me, but I shall not be.

9 As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away,

So he that goeth down to Sheol shall come up no more.

10 He shall return no more to his house,

Neither shall his place know him any more.

COMMENT 7:1-10

Having done such a thing there is loneliness which cannot be borne, PabloFor Whom The Bell Tolls

Job 7:1Job's friends reject his appeal. He then ceases to address them, as he returns to his lament. He compares life in general to forced military service, to the work of a day laborer, and to simple slavery, three wretched states of existence.[94] Job vehemently retorts to Eliphaz's easy optimismJob 5:17 ff. Job believes in the validity of Nietzsche's remark: Great problems are in the streets. Does the human condition consistently reveal a basic absurdity as well as an implacable nobility? Job's condition is always the stuff of human revolt, not only against social institutions but ultimately against God. In western thought, men have long talked of human nature, but after the revolutions of the 18th-19th centuries in the physical, biological, and behavioral sciences, men began to talk of the human condition,[95] which could be modified through the application of the scientific method. Here lies the challenge of our contemporary JobIs a life of happiness through peace, prosperity, and progress possible, or is life really absurd? Twentieth century men will not take lightly to any naive suggestions which are grounded in the heresy of Utopia. We live, like Job, in a world which experiences the inveteracy of evilMark 7:21-23. We know that Dostoevsky is speaking of all of us in his Notes from Underground. A man will often, without rhyme or reason, do things which are irrational and absurd. Man has a passion to destroy. This passion, Dostoevsky exposes in his reflections on the Crystal Palace which was erected in London in 1851 to celebrate the Great Exhibition of Science. He foresees the coming clouds of totalitarian tyrannies (cf. America's 1876 centennial and 1976 Bi-Centennial celebrations).[96] Job understands that his experience, while exceptional in the intensity of his suffering, is typical in the fact of suffering. The word translated hireling is used of a laborer, and a mercenary soldierJeremiah 46:21. The imagery of warfare (Numbers 1:3; 1 Samuel 28:1) and hard work of one trapped in ceaseless toil are fused in Job's lament.

[94] See M. David, Revue philosophique, 147, 1957, 341-49. It is a striking parallel to existentialist visions of life, Job comes to see that acceptance of his world must be based on other than normal grounds based in empirical justice. Nahum N. Glatzer, The Dimensions of Job (New York: Schocken Books, 1969); and C. G. Jung, Answer to Job (New York: Meridian Books, 1960), speaks of the dark face of God. Glatzer distinguishes between Judaic, Christian, and Humanist traditions in Job interpretation; much current interest in the Book of Job comes from the Existentialist, both theistic and atheistic, tradition.

[95] See Hanna Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago: paperback); and Social Theory from Hegel and Marx to the Frankfort School of Social Research (Frankfort, Germany) which is the origin of much Neo-Marxist theory of revolutionliberation. Is man the captain of his own fate? or is Camus correct in asserting that man is an eternal rock-pusher (Myth of Sisyphus), and that analysis of our contemporary intellectual malady requires the recognition of the absurdity of human life? The secret complicity that joins the logical and the everyday to the tragic is a fundamental theme of Kafka, Metamorphosis.

[96]The contemporary preoccupation with evil and pervasive meaninglessness stems from the developments in 19th century thought. Hegel reflects on God's wisdom and righteousness. The question of God's justice is bound up with the question of his purposefulness. Only if nature-history will ultimately realize God's purposefulness (Eschatology) can we speak of God as righteous. In contrast, Gilbert Murray claims not that God is righteous but that He is Beyond Good and Evil. Nietzsche criticized a believer's acceptance of God as being a relinquishment of personal freedom. Thus the freedom thesis enters through the door of atheism, a la Sartre, et al. R. Otto also denies that the final Chapter s in Job intend ... to suggest... teleological reflections or solutions (Glatzer, The Dimensions of Job, p. 277).

Job 7:2In Mesopotamia it was assumed that everyone (not in high political lineage) was a slave and servant of the gods. Every slave was compelled to work the long and hot days without respiteMatthew 20:12. They longed for the decline of the sun and the cooling breezes of the evening. The slave[97] received wages every dayDeuteronomy 24:15, which was his endurance motive. To withhold his pay was prohibitedLeviticus 19:13; Malachi 3:5; Romans 4:4; 1 Corinthians 3:8; 1 Timothy 5:18; James 5:4.

[97] For exhaustive analysis of slavery in the ancient Near East, see R. deVaux, Ancient Israel (New York, pp. 80-90) with excellent bibliography; the excellent studies of Lindhagen, The Servant Motif in Old Testament; and Scott Bartchy on Slavery in the Graeco-Roman milieu of the New Testament. Bartchy's work was originally a Harvard Ph.D. thesis.

Job 7:3Job now turns from contemplating man's universal condition to his own affliction. Months[98] of vanity (Hebrew show may mean emptiness, vanity, or moral evilJob 11:11; Job 31:5) and nights of wearisome anguish. When will the months pass away?

[98] From this allusion to months, Rabbi Aqiba assumed that Job's suffering lasted a year (Mishnah, -Eduyot Job 2:10; The Testament of Job says that he suffered seven years.

Job 7:4The night, like the months, are long (middahto measurebe extended, cf. Einstein's relativity thesis and contemporary man's preoccupation with time.) Killing time before time kills us, e.g. leisure, play, vacations, etc., and the quality of our lived time (Dilthey's Erlebnis).[99] Job tosses and turns all nighthis Long Day's Journey Into Night. There is no relief even from the dawning (nasheph) of the day. Nasheph means morning light in contrast to ereb, evening twilight. Acute discomfort enslaves this vain searcher for peace. Even his dozing invites diabolic nightmares (Job 7:14). Unabating miseryOh, come sweet Death! The grave is no darker than his nights of loneliness and despair.

[99] Note the significance of timeand reality in the physical and biological sciences in contrast to the humanities and behavioral sciences, cf. quality of daily existence and our existential-phenomenological response to time. See the late M. Heidegger's Being and Time; S. M. Cahn. Fate. Logic, and Time (Yale University Press); Caponigri, Time and Ideas (University of Notre Dame Press; Jiri Zeman, ed., Time in Science and Philosophy (New York: Am. Elsevier Pub.); and O. Cullinann, Christ and Time (Westminster Press).

Job 7:5Job's ulcers are repulsive to the sight and smell. His skin is covered with dirty scabs filled with worms. The scabs break open and run with pus.[100]

[100] This verse is omitted by the LXX and others. This is unnecessary at best. See Dhorme, Job, p. 102; and J. Weingreen, Vetus Testamentum, IV, 1954, 56ff.

Job 7:6Is Job contradicting himself when first he claims that life passes so slowly (of course, in his condition the psychology of suffering is imperative for our understanding his statements), and now complains that it is too brief? Here we note a play on the words for hope (tiqwah) and thread. The same word is used in Joshua 2:18; Joshua 2:21 for the scarlet thread which identified Rahab's house. As the weaver's shuttle runs out of thread, so now Job's existence is running out of hope. Swift as a weaver's shuttle fleet our days, Browning.

Job 7:7The pathos of this pitiful cry penetrates into the depths of every sensitive person. But will God hear? He has turned once more from his tormenting counselors directly to God. Life is at best transient (Psalms 78:39; Isa. 51:29; Jeremiah 5:13; Ecclesiastes 1:14; James 5:13 ff), and he will never again see prosperity and happiness. Until Tolkien's eucatastrophe in the form of our Lord's resurrection, neither Job nor any of his contemporaries could hope beyond suffering and the grave. Rashi observes that here Job denies the resurrection. But in Job 19:24-27 he reaches beyond the despair-creating view of man's finitude and of the finality of death to something better than Sheol. Note contemporary man's concern with death and his multiplication of his futile efforts to generate new men and new societies, where all are happy and prosperous.

Job 7:8Time is too short to expect (hope for) his restoration. God alone will prevail.

Job 7:9Vanish away translates Hebrew which means comes to an end. Sheol (see Kittel article) is described as a place from which no traveler has returnedJob 10:21; a land of darkness and despairJob 10:21 ff; as deepJob 11:8; place where the dead are hiddenJob 14:13; place for everyoneJob 3:19 and Job 30:23. Only resurrection can break the spell of this despair.

Job 7:10The theme of the finality of death reoccurs several timesJob 7:21; Job 10:21; Job 14:10; Job 14:12; Job 14:18-22; Job 17:13; Job 16; Job 19:25-27; also Psalms 103:16 b for the second line.