1 "My soul is weary of my life; I will give free course to my complaint. I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.
"Therefore I will not keep silent. I will speak in the anguish of my spirit. I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.
But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree: and he requested for himself that he might die, and said, It is enough; now, O Yahweh, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers.
If you deal thus with me, please kill me out of hand, if I have found favor in your sight; and let me not see my wretchedness.
If it is true that I have erred, My error remains with myself.
Therefore now, Yahweh, take, I beg you, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live."
Behold, [it was] for [my] peace [that] I had great bitterness: But you have in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption; For you have cast all my sins behind your back.
When I kept silence, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy on me. My strength was sapped in the heat of summer. Selah. I acknowledged my sin to you. I didn't hide my iniquity. I said, I will confess my transgressions to Yahweh, And you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah.
"Listen diligently to my speech. Let this be your consolation. Allow me, and I also will speak; After I have spoken, mock on. As for me, is my complaint to man? Why shouldn't I be impatient?
"Why is light given to him who is in misery, Life to the bitter in soul, Who long for death, but it doesn't come; Dig for it more than for hidden treasures, Who rejoice exceedingly, Are glad, when they can find the grave? Why is light given to a man whose way is hid, Whom God has hedged in?
"Though I speak, my grief is not subsided. Though I forbear, what am I eased? But now, God, you have surely worn me out. You have made desolate all my company. You have shriveled me up. This is a witness against me. My leanness rises up against me, It testifies to my face. He has torn me in his wrath, and persecuted me; He has gnashed on me with his teeth: My adversary sharpens his eyes on me. They have gaped on me with their mouth; They have struck me on the cheek reproachfully. They gather themselves together against me. God delivers me to the ungodly, And casts me into the hands of the wicked. I was at ease, and he broke me apart. Yes, he has taken me by the neck, and dashed me to pieces. He has also set me up for his target. His archers surround me. He splits my kidneys apart, and does not spare. He pours out my gall on the ground. He breaks me with breach on breach. He runs on me like a giant. I have sewed sackcloth on my skin, And have thrust my horn in the dust. My face is red with weeping. Deep darkness is on my eyelids.
"Oh that you would hide me in Sheol, That you would keep me secret, until your wrath is past, That you would appoint me a set time, and remember me!
I loathe my life. I don't want to live forever. Leave me alone; for my days are but a breath.
Do you intend to reprove words, Seeing that the speeches of one who is desperate are as wind?
"Oh that my anguish were weighed, And all my calamity laid in the balances! For now it would be heavier than the sand of the seas, Therefore have my words been rash. For the arrows of the Almighty are within me, My spirit drinks up their poison. The terrors of God set themselves in array against me.
In famine he will redeem you from death; In war, from the power of the sword.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible » Commentary on Job 10
Commentary on Job 10 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 10
Job 10:1-22. Job's Reply to Bildad Continued.
1. leave my complaint upon myself—rather, "I will give loose to my complaint" (Job 7:11).
2. show me, &c.—Do not, by virtue of Thy mere sovereignty, treat me as guilty without showing me the reasons.
3. Job is unwilling to think God can have pleasure in using His power to "oppress" the weak, and to treat man, the work of His own hands, as of no value (Job 10:8; Ps 138:8).
shine upon—favor with prosperity (Ps 50:2).
4-6. Dost Thou see as feebly as man? that is, with the same uncharitable eye, as, for instance, Job's friends? Is Thy time as short? Impossible! Yet one might think, from the rapid succession of Thy strokes, that Thou hadst no time to spare in overwhelming me.
7. "Although Thou (the Omniscient) knowest," &c. (connected with Job 10:6), "Thou searchest after my sin."
and … that none that can deliver out of thine hand—Therefore Thou hast no need to deal with me with the rapid violence which man would use (see Job 10:6).
8. Made—with pains; implying a work of difficulty and art; applying to God language applicable only to man.
together round about—implying that the human body is a complete unity, the parts of which on all sides will bear the closest scrutiny.
9. clay—Job 10:10 proves that the reference here is, not so much to the perishable nature of the materials, as to their wonderful fashioning by the divine potter.
10. In the organization of the body from its rude commencements, the original liquid gradually assumes a more solid consistency, like milk curdling into cheese (Ps 139:15, 16). Science reveals that the chyle circulated by the lacteal vessels is the supply to every organ.
11. fenced—or "inlaid" (Ps 139:15); "curiously wrought" [Umbreit]. In the fœtus the skin appears first, then the flesh, then the harder parts.
12. visitation—Thy watchful Providence.
spirit—breath.
13. is with thee—was Thy purpose. All God's dealings with Job in his creation, preservation, and present afflictions were part of His secret counsel (Ps 139:16; Ac 15:18; Ec 3:11).
14, 15. Job is perplexed because God "marks" every sin of his with such ceaseless rigor. Whether "wicked" (godless and a hypocrite) or "righteous" (comparatively sincere), God condemns and punishes alike.
15. lift up my head—in conscious innocence (Ps 3:3).
see thou—rather, "and seeing I see (I too well see) mine affliction," (which seems to prove me guilty) [Umbreit].
16. increaseth—rather, "(if) I lift up (my head) Thou wouldest hunt me," &c. [Umbreit].
and again—as if a lion should not kill his prey at once, but come back and torture it again.
17. witnesses—His accumulated trials were like a succession of witnesses brought up in proof of his guilt, to wear out the accused.
changes and war—rather, "(thou settest in array) against me host after host" (literally, "changes and a host," that is, a succession of hosts); namely, his afflictions, and then reproach upon reproach from his friends.
20. But, since I was destined from my birth to these ills, at least give me a little breathing time during the few days left me (Job 9:34; 13:21; Ps 39:13).
22. The ideas of order and light, disorder and darkness, harmonize (Ge 1:2). Three Hebrew words are used for darkness; in Job 10:21 (1) the common word "darkness"; here (2) "a land of gloom" (from a Hebrew root, "to cover up"); (3) as "thick darkness" or blackness (from a root, expressing sunset). "Where the light thereof is like blackness." Its only sunshine is thick darkness. A bold figure of poetry. Job in a better frame has brighter thoughts of the unseen world. But his views at best wanted the definite clearness of the Christian's. Compare with his words here Re 21:23; 22:5; 2Ti 1:10.