20 If I have sinned, what do I unto thee, O thou watcher of men? Why hast thou set me as a mark for thee, So that I am a burden to myself?
He hath bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow.
Thy righteousness is like the mountains of God; Thy judgments are a great deep: O Jehovah, thou preservest man and beast.
O Jehovah God of hosts, How long wilt thou be angry against the prayer of thy people?
For thou wilt make them turn their back; Thou wilt make ready with thy bowstrings against their face.
He singeth before men, and saith, I have sinned, and perverted that which was right, And it profited me not:
I am clean, without transgression; I am innocent, neither is there iniquity in me:
Thou art Jehovah, even thou alone; thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all things that are thereon, the seas and all that is in them, and thou preservest them all; and the host of heaven worshippeth thee.
I was at ease, and he brake me asunder; Yea, he hath taken me by the neck, and dashed me to pieces: He hath also set me up for his mark. His archers compass me round about; He cleaveth my reins asunder, and doth not spare; He poureth out my gall upon the ground. He breaketh me with breach upon breach; He runneth upon me like a giant.
For thou writest bitter things against me, And makest me to inherit the iniquities of my youth:
I shall be condemned; Why then do I labor in vain? If I wash myself with snow water, And make my hands never so clean; Yet wilt thou plunge me in the ditch, And mine own clothes shall abhor me.
For the arrows of the Almighty are within me, The poison whereof my spirit drinketh up: The terrors of God do set themselves in array against me.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Job 7
Commentary on Job 7 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 7
Job, in this chapter, goes on to express the bitter sense he had of his calamities and to justify himself in his desire of death.
Job 7:1-6
Job is here excusing what he could not justify, even his inordinate desire of death. Why should he not wish for the termination of life, which would be the termination of his miseries? To enforce this reason he argues,
Job 7:7-16
Job, observing perhaps that his friends, though they would not interrupt him in his discourse, yet began to grow weary, and not to heed much what he said, here turns to God, and speaks to him. If men will not hear us, God will; if men cannot help us, he can; for his arm is not shortened, neither is his ear heavy. Yet we must not go to school to Job here to learn how to speak to God; for, it must be confessed, there is a great mixture of passion and corruption in what he here says. But, if God be not extreme to mark what his people say amiss, let us also make the best of it. Job is here begging of God either to ease him or to end him. He here represents himself to God,
Job 7:17-21
Job here reasons with God,