Job 7: 1 Is there not a time of hard service for man on earth? Are not his days also like the days of a hired man? 2 Like a servant who earnestly desires the shade, and like a hired man who eagerly looks for his wages, 3 so I have been allotted months of futility, and wearisome nights have been appointed to me. 4 When I lie down, I say, ‘When shall I arise, and the night be ended?’ For I have had my fill of tossing till dawn. 5 My flesh is caked with worms and dust, my skin is cracked and breaks out afresh.
Job here vindicates himself “for the wish to die which he had expressed.“ (Albert Barnes) “The servant eagerly longs for the lengthening shadow, which tells him that his day of labor is at an end, and we may allow ourselves to anticipate the hour of our reward and deliverance.” (F. B. Meyer) “‘Is there not a time of hard service for man on earth?’ The Hebrew, with its literal rendering, is as follows:... ‘Is there not a warfare to miserable man upon the earth?’... The Chaldee is the same... ‘Is there not a continual campaign ordained for mortals upon the earth?’... Coverdale: ‘Is not the life off man upon earth a very batayle?’” ( Adam Clarke)
“There is a set time for his coming into the world, for his continuance in it, and for his going out of it; this is to man ‘on earth’, with respect to his being and abode here.” (John Gill) — “‘Are not his days also like the days of a hired man?’ an hireling; whose time is limited and short, being but for a few years, Isaiah 16:14 21:16, and sometimes put for days, Job 14:6 Matthew 20:1,2, and whose condition is full of toil and hardship.” (Matthew Poole) “The time for which a servant is hired, whether it be for a day or for a year, or more, it is a set time; it is fixed, settled, and determined in the agreement, and so are the days of man's life on earth.” (John Gill)— “‘Like a servant who earnestly desires the shade, and like a hired man who eagerly looks for his wages,— A servant tries to get out of the sun into a shade to rest. A hireling looks for work to be over so he will be paid.” (Gary H. Everett's Study Notes)— “‘so I have been allotted months of futility’—vanity. ‘Months of vanity’ indicate a protracted time of uselessness, when no good cause is furthered by us, and we ourselves seem rather to be failing in piety than growing in grace.” (A. Mackennal)
Job had sores, but this can be put for the aged. “War-service, and the time of a hired labourer's employment, limited. The term used also to express the time of a Levite's service at the tabernacle, namely, twenty years (Num). Doctrine: The bounds of man's life appointed (ch. Job 14:5). Our days measured out by Him who created us (Psa 39:4). Our times in His hand (Psa 31:15).” (Preacher's Complete Homiletical Comm)— “‘and wearisome nights have been appointed to me.’ Sorrow must come. Job maintained that such was the life of man. “The young have had but a transient ache or pain, which could be laughed off, so superficial was it. So when preachers talk of days that are nights, and summers that are made cold by unforgotten or fast-approaching winters, the young suppose the preachers are always moaning, and the church is but a painted grave, and it is better to be in the lighted theatre and in the place of entertainment, where men laugh wildly by the hour and take hold of life with a light and easy touch.... Suffering will pluck every flower, destroy every sign of beauty, put back the dawn, and lengthen the black night. This is what sorrow, unblessed, must always do. It will blind the eye with tears; it will suffocate the throat with sobs; it will enfeeble the very hand when it is put out to make another effort at self-restoration.” (Jos. Parker)
The last verses are not particular to Job, who was covered with sores. “He was looking forward to a reward, and it was not unnatural or improper to desire that that reward should be given to him.” (Albert Barnes) “Even the Christian soldier, ‘warring a good warfare,’ rejoices when it is completed (1 Timothy 1:18; 2 Timothy 2:3; 2 Timothy 4:7, 2 Timothy 4:8).” (Jamieson, Faussett, Brown) “When I lie down,’ in death— I say, ‘When shall I arise, and the night be ended?’— at the resurrection on the last day. “‘For I have had my fill of tossing till dawn.‘— of toil. We are in the process of dying but until then toil on the earth is our portion. (Genesis 3:19)
“‘My flesh is caked with worms. The word ‘rimmah’ usually denotes a maggot found in decaying flesh or food (e.g., Exod 16:24). In this verse, rimmah may be a metonymy for putrid and festering skin, or it may even be a homonym with the meaning rottenness, as indicated by an Arabic cognate. —“‘and dust,’— A fit dress for a dying man.— “‘my skin is cracked'— or cleft and chapped (as the earth is in drought), in most loathsome and formidable manner.” (Poole)— “and breaks out afresh.”
Job 7:6 “My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, and are spent without hope. 7 Oh, remember that my life is a breath! My eye will never again see good. 8 The eye of him who sees me will see me no more; while your eyes are upon me, I shall no longer be. 9 As the cloud disappears and vanishes away, so he who goes down to the grave does not come up. 10 He shall never return to his house, nor shall his place know him anymore.
“The time of my life hastens to a period; and therefore vain are those hopes which you give me of a restitution to my former prosperity in this world.” (Matthew Poole) "‘My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle,’— each leaving a thread behind it. As the threads of each day, “He cuts me off from the loom; from day until night You make an end of me.” (Isaiah 38:12) "Every day like the weaver‘s shuttle leaves a thread behind; and each shall wear, as he weaves.... Job‘s thought is that his days must swiftly be cut off...” (Jamieson, Faussett, Brown)— “‘and are spent without hope.’ (6) — not without hope of happiness in another world, but without hope of being restored to his outward felicity in this.” (John Gill) “Such were his trials here, and so entirely had his comforts been removed, that he had no prospect of again enjoying life.” (Albert Barnes) His hope was now post judgment. “If we”- as Job- “are weaving to ourselves holy garments and robes of righteousness, we shall have the benefit of them when our work comes to be reviewed and every man shall reap as he sowed and wear as he wove.” (Matthew Henry)
“‘Oh, remember that my life is a breath!’— ruach — “And Yahweh God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.” (Genesis 2:7) “Man's life is in his breath, and that breath is in his nostrils, and therefore not to be accounted of, or depended on.” (John Gill) It is the gift of God. ”The language denotes that it is frail, and soon passed.” (Barnes)— “‘My eye will never again see good.’ (7) His sense is, that he should see or enjoy no more temporal good; either in this world, being without hope of any, or in the grave, whither he was going and would shortly be.” (Gill) “Hezekiah hath a like expression when sentenced to die: I said in the cutting off of my days, I shall not see the LORD, even the LORD in the land of the living (that is, in this life present, Psalms 27:13; Psalms 52:5; Psalms 142:5; Isaiah 53:8, called also the light of the living, John 9:5, Psalms 56:13); I shall behold man no more with the inhabitants of the world, Isaiah 38:11.” (Trapp) Yet, he knew that in the last day he would see God (Job 19:25).
“‘The eye of him who sees me will see me no more;’ not disproving Job‘s belief in the resurrection. It merely means, he shall come up no more in the present order of things.” (Jamieson, Faussett, Brown) "But now he has died; why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me." (2 Sam 12:23) “In death we shall neither see nor be seen, but be soon both out of sight and out of mind too.. Such a place is the grave till the last day: for then the sea shall give up the dead which are in it, and death and the grave shall render up the dead which are in them, Revelation 20:13, then shall Adam see all his nephews at once.” (John Trapp)— “‘while your eyes are upon me, I shall no longer be.’ (8) that is, thine own eyes shall look for me, but I shall be no more. So LXX. and Vulg.” (C. J Ellicott) “‘As the cloud disappears and vanishes away, so he who goes down to the grave — שׁאול she'ôl — does not come up.’ (9 ) It would be pressing this too far to adduce it as proving that Job did not believe in the doctrine of the resurrection.“ (Albert Barnes) The grave is where the dead go to await the judgment.
“Synonyms for Sheol are ‘pit,’ ‘death,’ and ‘destruction’ (Abaddon). Sheol is a place of shadows and utter silence. Here all existence is in suspense, yet it is not a nonplace, but rather a place where life is no more. It is described as ‘the land of forgetfulness.’ Those who dwell there cannot praise God (Psalm 88:10-12).... It is not, however, a place where God is entirely absent; there can be no escape from God even in Sheol (Psalm 139:8). This omnipresence of God is graphically described in Job: ‘Sheol is naked before God, and Abaddon has no covering’ (Job 26:6). A similar thought is expressed in Proverbs: ‘Sheol and Abaddon lie open before the LORD, how much more the hearts of men!’ (Proverbs 15:11). In both texts Sheol and Abaddon are used interchangeably. Abaddon means literally ‘destruction,’ but in Revelation it is used as a personal name.” (Tyndale)
“The impossibility of its (life’s) recall— “Send me to my fathers house,” said the five. (Luke 16:28) No indeed. “‘He shall never return to his house, nor shall his place know him anymore.’ (10)The emitted breath, the cloud or smoke disappearing from the sky, never more to be recalled. Death, ‘the bourne from which no traveller returns.’ [There are no reincarnations or apparitions, as the heathen suppose.] Only one life on earth. A few special exceptions to prove the rule. Men die but once. Solemn responsibility connected with our one life. No second to correct the errors, undo the mischief, or make up for the negligence, of the first. An egress from the grave in reserve for each, but no return to a mortal life. A resurrection to come, both of the just and the unjust. That resurrection, however, not in the course of nature, but by the special command and power of God (Joh 5:28; 1Th 4:16). Christ Himself the Resurrection and the Life. Resurrection committed to His hands (Joh 11:25; Joh 6:54). Resurrection not unknown to the patriarchs... Enoch's translation a testimony to the early ages of the existence of the body in an invisible state. His prophecy a distinct revelation of resurrection (Jude 1:14-15). God's relation to the godly dead as their God, a guarantee both of the separate existence of their spirits and the future resurrection of their bodies (Mat 22:31-32).” (Preacher's Complete Homiletical Comm.)
“Each day adds something to the colour and complexion of the whole life— something for good or evil…. Of how great importance then is every day! We weave now what we wear in eternity. ‘Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.’ Scriptures declare that our life will be brought into evidence to show whether we were believers in Christ or not. Then let us ask ourselves these questions-- 1. On what are we resting our hope of salvation? 2. Is it our sincere desire to be conformed to the likeness of Jesus Christ? 3. Do we live in the spirit of prayer? 4. How has the day of our life been spent? What have we done for God’s glory?” (E. Blencowe)
Job 7:11 “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. 12 Am I a sea, or a sea serpent, that You set a guard over me? 13 When I say, ‘My bed will comfort me, my couch will ease my complaint,’ 14 then You scare me with dreams and terrify me with visions, 15 So that my soul chooses strangling and death rather than my body. 16 I loathe my life; I would not live forever. Let me alone, for my days are but a breath.
Job’s best friends had no idea of the turmoil in his soul and the inability to find rest, even in sleep. Neither do we know what our brother is going through. But Job did have a Foundation- a hope. Job “shall return no more to his house, neither shall his place know him any more. He wanted to go to sleep- an unconscious intermediate state— In this respect, “Sheôl [the grave] signifies the appointed inevitable and inexorable demanding of everything earthly.” (Keil & Delitzsch) He longed for this intermediate state, which did not rule out a hope for a better, final state.
“When we have but a few breaths to draw, we should spend them in the holy, gracious breathings of faith and prayer.” (Matthew Henry) “‘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.’ (11) His afflictions were like the waters of Marah, bitter ones, very grievous and disagreeable to flesh and blood, and by which his life and soul were embittered to him; ... so that this [speech] was not an hasty and precipitate action, but what upon deliberation he resolved to do; to pour out his complaint before God, and leave it with Him.” (John Gill) Not my will but Yours be done.
“‘Am I a sea, or a sea serpent, that You set a guard over me?’ (12) Job was hedged about and shut in with insuperable difficulties of various kinds; he was entangled as a wild beast in a net; the more he struggled, the more he lost his strength, and the less probability there was of his being extricated from his present situation. The sea is shut in with barriers, over which it cannot pass; for God has ‘placed the sand for the bound of the sea by a perpetual decree, that it cannot pass it: and though the waves thereof toss themselves, yet can they not prevail; though they roar, yet can they not pass over it,’ Jeremiah 5:22.” (Adam Clarke)
God had indeed placed a boundary on his life- Job 2: 6– “but you must spare his life.” So, the patriarch “pleads for a moment's respite.” (Arthur Peake) “When I say, ‘My bed will comfort me, my couch will ease my complaint,’ —which may take off my sense of pain for that time— ‘then You scare me with dreams and terrify me with visions,’ (14).. - which could be a reference to Job 4:12-21, when Eliphaz describes his night vision.” (Gary H. Everett)— and/ or to his own dreams and visions— “so that I am afraid to go to sleep, and my remedy proves as bad as my disease...—- ‘so that my soul chooses strangling’— the most violent death, so it be but certain and sudden, rather than such a wretched life.” (Joseph Benson)— “‘and death rather than my body’— lit. ‘than my bones’; which are the more solid parts of the body, and the support of it, and are put for the whole and the life thereof.” (John Gill)
He desired a better tabernacle. The idea is- "there was no intermission to his sorrows.” (Albert Barnes) So he wished to sleep the sleep of death- a picture of rest in Sheol- in Abraham's blossom. “‘I loathe my life.’ We are led to say with Job, ‘I would not live always.’ From the state of things around us. They are subject to dissolution, and are actually dissolving. Every year we behold proofs and symptoms of this. Years as they pass speak to us of the consummation of all things. Is it a thing desirable to live alway in the dissolving scene?” (S. Charters) “‘Let me alone,’ etc. that is, withdraw Your breathe from me. “There is no other way to account for life; that mysterious power which upholds the upright elaborated matter, a human body.” (Daniel Whedon) It is dependent on the breathe or will of God. Our natural body is “a decaying and perishing thing, and will, of itself, quickly vanish and depart.” (Joseph Benson) It will be dissolved.
“‘For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” (2 Corinthians 5:1) “Now it is the saints' comfort whilst they are in it, and in a view of the dissolution of it, that they have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens… which some understand of the glorified body upon its resurrection, as opposed to its frail, mortal, earthly frame in its present situation...” (John Gill)
"We rely on the resurrection of Christ, as the firstfruits of them that slept. We are the more consoled in our hope, for having received the firstfruits of the Spirit, and now wait for the adoption, the redemption of our bodies…— ‘For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven.’ (2 Corinthians 5:2) Many of the heathens had a notion that the souls of men were corporeal; and Tertullian seems to have embraced it, before he knew the gospel. They thought, as Thespesias, in Plutarch, is said to have returned from the dead, that souls retained the form and features of their bodies, and that the passions were to be traced on their countenance... But Beza, with many others, understand this passage, as in 1 Corinthians 15:53, of this mortal putting on immortality [at His coming again in glory for salvation]… Ambrose, and Theodoret understand it of a clothing of divine charity, justifying grace, and good works, implying all the fruits of the Spirit. And our wish not to be found naked, like Adam, certainly imports the being clothed with the glorious image of God.” (Joseph Sutcliffe)
Job 7:17 “What is man, that You should exalt him, that You should set Your heart on him, 18 that You should visit him every morning, and test him every moment? 19 How long? Will You not look away from me, and let me alone till I swallow my saliva? 20 Have I sinned? What have I done to You, O watcher of men? Why have You set me as Your target, so that I am a burden to myself? 21 Why then do You not pardon my transgression, and take away my iniquity? For now I will lie down in the dust, and You will seek me diligently, but I will no longer be.”
“What is man, that You should exalt him, that You should set Your heart on him, etc. He is “of the earth, earthly; a mutable creature, and altogether vanity; so that it was wonderful God should magnify him as He did, raise him to such honour and dignity, as to set him over all the works of his hands, and bestow peculiar marks of his favour upon him in Eden's garden.” (John Gill)— “‘that You should visit him every morning,’ to wit, punish or chasten him, as the word to visit, or visiting, is oft used, as Exodus 20:5 32:34 34:7.” (Matthew Poole)—- “and try him every moment?’ To live amid the desolation of his great sorrow: and struggling with awful doubts, was a constant trial, and why did God thus ‘try him every moment’ by keeping him alive?” (T. Campbell Finlayson)— “‘How long? Will You not look away from me, and let me alone ‘till I swallow my saliva?’ There is no reprieve. “This is doubtless a proverbial expression, like ‘the twinkling of an eye,’ or ‘while I fetch a breath.’” (C. J. Ellicott)
“Have I sinned? What have I done to You, O Watcher of men?’- Reveal my sins and I will confess them and forsake them. “‘Why have You set me as Your target, so that I am a burden to myself? Why then do You not pardon my transgression, and take away my iniquity?’ (19-20a) In Job’s belief, sin was the origin of all disaster, and so he thinks that if he were but pardoned his sorrows would pass away. Our Lord has not discouraged the belief when He has taught us that His miracle of healing the paralytic was accompanied with the assurance of forgiveness (e.g., Matthew 9:2; Mark 2:5; Luke 5:20).” (C. J. Ellicott)— “‘For now I will lie down in the dust,’ of death,.... and therefore must have help presently, or not at all.” (John Trapp)— “‘and You will seek me diligently, but I will no longer be.’ (21) Death to the believer is a sleep. The thought of it not unpleasant to Job.... Faith says, ‘Though His hand be against me, His heart is still towards me.’”(Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary)
David has a similar experience in Psalm 8:4-5- that of wonder of God’s condescending love– “‘When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your hands, the moon and the stars, which You’— Jesus— ‘have ordained,’— what is man that You are mindful of him,’” and he adds, “‘and the son of man, that you visit Him?’ The title of "the son of man" is a base one (cp. Watcher of man). “It is often given to Christ, and used by Him of Himself... And this visiting of Him is not to be understood in a way of wrath, though he was so visited by God, when he bore the chastisements of his people; but in a way of favour, by bestowing upon Him without measure the gifts and graces of His Spirit.” (John Gill) Jesus “was ‘obedient unto death,’ He has been given the ‘name which is above every name’( Phil 2:8-9)...” (Dr. Henry M. Morris) offering eternal life to all.
In quoting psalm 8, Paul’s hope, like Job's, was “the world to come,” (Heb 2:5) when “even the angels are subject to Christ,.. [yet] in His state of humiliation, was for a little while inferior to the angels, just as He had no form or comeliness among men, Isaiah 53:2. .” (Paul E. Kretzmann)