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Job Continues: My Life Has No Hope
7 “Has not man a hard service on earth,
and are not his days like the days of a hired hand?
Like a slave who longs for the shadow,
and like a hired hand who looks for his wages,
so I am allotted months of emptiness,
and nights of misery are apportioned to me.
When I lie down I say, ‘When shall I arise?’
But the night is long,
and I am full of tossing till the dawn.
My flesh is clothed with worms and dirt;
my skin hardens, then breaks out afresh.
My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle
and come to their end without hope.
“Remember that my life is a breath;
my eye will never again see good.
The eye of him who sees me will behold me no more;
while your eyes are on me, I shall be gone.
As the cloud fades and vanishes,
so he who goes down to Sheol does not come up;
he returns no more to his house,
nor does his place know him anymore.
“Therefore I will not restrain my mouth;
I will speak in the anguish of my spirit;
I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.
Am I the sea, or a sea monster,
that you set a guard over me?
When I say, ‘My bed will comfort me,
my couch will ease my complaint,’
then you scare me with dreams
and terrify me with visions,
so that I would choose strangling
and death rather than my bones.
I loathe my life; I would not live forever.
Leave me alone, for my days are a breath.
What is man, that you make so much of him,
and that you set your heart on him,
visit him every morning
and test him every moment?
How long will you not look away from me,
nor leave me alone till I swallow my spit?
If I sin, what do I do to you, you watcher of mankind?
Why have you made me your mark?
Why have I become a burden to you?
Why do you not pardon my transgression
and take away my iniquity?
For now I shall lie in the earth;
you will seek me, but I shall not be.”
(ESV)
Job 7 Commentary
by Brad Boyles
Job now turns his attention to God. He is fully convinced that he will die soon, and the only option he has is to convince God not to prolong his suffering, but to speed up the process. The attitude and posture of Job begins to turn in this chapter as he is working through accepting his circumstances instead of offering unrealistic solutions. In a strange way, Job is reaching out to God for reconciliation in his unbearable condition. He has reached a turning point.
The vivid detail of Job’s suffering is unbelievable. He seeks his bed and couch for just a moment of relief but is awakened with frightening dreams that are “sent by God.” The phrase in verse 15 conveys he is struggling to catch his breath. Many have speculated he was describing seizures that overtook his body, which he preferred would have strangled him to death. He can find no relief, either by day or by night.
There are even maggots breeding in his skin sores! This is why he asks God if He will ever look away from him long enough to simply swallow.
With every attempt to make sense of his situation, Job’s affliction interrupts his thoughts. He cannot escape the nightmare of his reality. The faith he has in God is the foundation for his wrestling because it challenges everything he has believed.
Everything.
On one hand, he knows God is in control and over this suffering, but on the other hand, he cannot fathom the meaning and purpose behind all of it. Have you ever been there? Are you there right now?
Look, if Job didn’t have faith, he would not address or even plead with God. He would slander God and probably take his own life. If, indeed, the Lord has forgotten him and is not a good and loving Father, Job would have no reason to persevere. The fact that he is searching and wrestling shows his deep commitment to the sovereignty of the Lord. He is determined to uncover the truth. He believes deep in his heart that there must be a purpose behind all this.
Overall, Job’s speech here is far more optimistic than his opening rant from Chapter 3. He is actually considering being free from his relief here in Job 7 rather than just ceasing to exist. This is the process we all go through when we face something that we do not understand. He hope and we trust because we believe there is more than what we can see on the surface.
We live in a horrible world with challenges every single day. Initially, when we are personally affected, we are drawn to self-pity. As we work through some of that with the Lord and seek Him in our darkest moments, we begin to find peace and comfort in the Lord. For those of us today, we have the ultimate comforter in the Holy Spirit who affirms that no matter what happens in this life, the shed blood of Jesus covers all.