1 "Isn't a man forced to labor on earth? Aren't his days like the days of a hired hand?
Seeing his days are determined, The number of his months is with you, And you have appointed his bounds that he can't pass; Look away from him, that he may rest, Until he shall accomplish, as a hireling, his day.
"Yahweh, show me my end, What is the measure of my days. Let me know how frail I am.
"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! If a man dies, shall he live again? All the days of my warfare would I wait, Until my release should come.
He shall reckon with him who bought him from the year that he sold himself to him to the Year of Jubilee: and the price of his sale shall be according to the number of years; according to the time of a hired servant shall he be with him.
It shall not seem hard to you, when you let him go free from you; for to the double of the hire of a hireling has he served you six years: and Yahweh your God will bless you in all that you do.
There is no man who has power over the spirit to contain the spirit; neither does he have power over the day of death. There is no discharge in war; neither shall wickedness deliver those who practice it.
For thus has the Lord said to me, Within a year, according to the years of a hireling, all the glory of Kedar shall fail;
Speak comfortably to Jerusalem; and cry to her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received of Yahweh's hand double for all her sins.
"For the Kingdom of Heaven is like a man who was the master of a household, who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. When he had agreed with the laborers for a denarius{A denarius is a silver Roman coin worth 1/25th of a Roman aureus. This was a common wage for a day of farm labor.} a day, he sent them into his vineyard. He went out about the third hour,{Time was measured from sunrise to sunset, so the third hour would be about 9:00 AM.} and saw others standing idle in the marketplace. To them he said, 'You also go into the vineyard, and whatever is right I will give you.' So they went their way. Again he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour,{noon and 3:00 P. M.} and did likewise. About the eleventh hour{5:00 PM} he went out, and found others standing idle. He said to them, 'Why do you stand here all day idle?' "They said to him, 'Because no one has hired us.' "He said to them, 'You also go into the vineyard, and you will receive whatever is right.' When evening had come, the lord of the vineyard said to his steward, 'Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning from the last to the first.' "When those who were hired at about the eleventh hour came, they each received a denarius. When the first came, they supposed that they would receive more; and they likewise each received a denarius. When they received it, they murmured against the master of the household, saying, 'These last have spent one hour, and you have made them equal to us, who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat!' "But he answered one of them, 'Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Didn't you agree with me for a denarius? Take that which is yours, and go your way. It is my desire to give to this last just as much as to you. Isn't it lawful for me to do what I want to with what I own? Or is your eye evil, because I am good?'
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible » Commentary on Job 7
Commentary on Job 7 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 7
Job 7:1-21. Job Excuses His Desire for Death.
1. appointed time—better, "a warfare," hard conflict with evil (so in Isa 40:2; Da 10:1). Translate it "appointed time" (Job 14:14). Job reverts to the sad picture of man, however great, which he had drawn (Job 3:14), and details in this chapter the miseries which his friends will see, if, according to his request (Job 6:28), they will look on him. Even the Christian soldier, "warring a good warfare," rejoices when it is completed (1Ti 1:18; 2Ti 2:3; 4:7, 8).
2. earnestly desireth—Hebrew, "pants for the [evening] shadow." Easterners measure time by the length of their shadow. If the servant longs for the evening when his wages are paid, why may not Job long for the close of his hard service, when he shall enter on his "reward?" This proves that Job did not, as many maintain, regard the grave as a mere sleep.
3.—Months of comfortless misfortune.
I am made to possess—literally, "to be heir to." Irony. "To be heir to," is usually a matter of joy; but here it is the entail of an involuntary and dismal inheritance.
Months—for days, to express its long duration.
Appointed—literally, "they have numbered to me"; marking well the unavoidable doom assigned to him.
4. Literally, "When shall be the flight of the night?" [Gesenius]. Umbreit, not so well, "The night is long extended"; literally, "measured out" (so Margin).
5. In elephantiasis maggots are bred in the sores (Ac 12:23; Isa 14:11).
clods of dust—rather, a crust of dried filth and accumulated corruption (Job 2:7, 8).
my skin is broken and … loathsome—rather, comes together so as to heal up, and again breaks out with running matter [Gesenius]. More simply the Hebrew is, "My skin rests (for a time) and (again) melts away" (Ps 58:7).
6. (Isa 38:12). Every day like the weaver's shuttle leaves a thread behind; and each shall wear, as he weaves. But Job's thought is that his days must swiftly be cut off as a web;
without hope—namely, of a recovery and renewal of life (Job 14:19; 1Ch 29:15).
7. Address to God.
Wind—a picture of evanescence (Ps 78:39).
shall no more see—rather, "shall no more return to see good." This change from the different wish in Job 3:17, &c., is most true to nature. He is now in a softer mood; a beam from former days of prosperity falling upon memory and the thought of the unseen world, where one is seen no more (Job 7:8), drew from him an expression of regret at leaving this world of light (Ec 11:7); so Hezekiah (Isa 38:11). Grace rises above nature (2Co 5:8).
8. The eye of him who beholds me (present, not past), that is, in the very act of beholding me, seeth me no more.
Thine eyes are upon me, and I am not—He disappears, even while God is looking upon him. Job cannot survive the gaze of Jehovah (Ps 104:32; Re 20:11). Not, "Thine eyes seek me and I am not to be found"; for God's eye penetrates even to the unseen world (Ps 139:8). Umbreit unnaturally takes "thine" to refer to one of the three friends.
9. (2Sa 12:23).
the grave—the Sheol, or place of departed spirits, not disproving Job's belief in the resurrection. It merely means, "He shall come up no more" in the present order of things.
10. (Ps 103:16). The Oriental keenly loves his dwelling. In Arabian elegies the desertion of abodes by their occupants is often a theme of sorrow. Grace overcomes this also (Lu 18:29; Ac 4:34).
11. Therefore, as such is my hard lot, I will at least have the melancholy satisfaction of venting my sorrow in words. The Hebrew opening words, "Therefore I, at all events," express self-elevation [Umbreit].
12. Why dost thou deny me the comfort of care-assuaging sleep? Why scarest thou me with frightful dreams?
Am I a sea—regarded in Old Testament poetry as a violent rebel against God, the Lord of nature, who therefore curbs his violence (Jer 5:22).
or a whale—or some other sea monster (Isa 27:1), that Thou needest thus to watch and curb me? The Egyptians watched the crocodile most carefully to prevent its doing mischief.
14. The frightful dreams resulting from elephantiasis he attributes to God; the common belief assigned all night visions to God.
15. Umbreit translates, "So that I could wish to strangle myself—dead by my own hands." He softens this idea of Job's harboring the thought of suicide, by representing it as entertained only in agonizing dreams, and immediately repudiated with horror in Job 7:16, "Yet that (self-strangling) I loathe." This is forcible and graphic. Perhaps the meaning is simply, "My soul chooses (even) strangling (or any violent death) rather than my life," literally, "my bones" (Ps 35:10); that is, rather than the wasted and diseased skeleton, left to him. In this view, "I loathe it" (Job 7:16) refers to his life.
16. Let me alone—that is, cease to afflict me for the few and vain days still left to me.
17. (Ps 8:4; 144:3). Job means, "What is man that thou shouldst make him [of so much importance], and that thou shouldst expend such attention [or, heart-thought] upon him" as to make him the subject of so severe trials? Job ought rather to have reasoned from God's condescending so far to notice man as to try him, that there must be a wise and loving purpose in trial. David uses the same words, in their right application, to express wonder that God should do so much as He does for insignificant man. Christians who know God manifest in the man Christ Jesus may use them still more.
18. With each new day (Ps 73:14). It is rather God's mercies, not our trials, that are new every morning (La 3:23). The idea is that of a shepherd taking count of his flock every morning, to see if all are there [Cocceius].
19. How long (like a jealous keeper) wilt thou never take thine eyes off (so the Hebrew for "depart from") me? Nor let me alone for a brief respite (literally, "so long as I take to swallow my spittle"), an Arabic proverb, like our, "till I draw my breath."
20. I have sinned—Yet what sin can I do against ("to," Job 35:6) thee (of such a nature that thou shouldst jealously watch and deprive me of all strength, as if thou didst fear me)? Yet thou art one who hast men ever in view, ever watchest them—O thou Watcher (Job 7:12; Da 9:14) of men. Job had borne with patience his trials, as sent by God (Job 1:21; 2:10); only his reason cannot reconcile the ceaseless continuance of his mental and bodily pains with his ideas of the divine nature.
set me as a mark—Wherefore dost thou make me thy point of attack? that is, ever assail me with new pains? [Umbreit] (La 3:12).
21. for now—very soon.
in the morning—not the resurrection; for then Job will be found. It is a figure, from one seeking a sick man in the morning, and finding he has died in the night. So Job implies that, if God does not help him at once, it will be too late, for he will be gone. The reason why God does not give an immediate sense of pardon to awakened sinners is that they think they have a claim on God for it.