Job 7

Job 7:1-21 . JOB EXCUSES HIS DESIRE FOR DEATH.

1. appointed time--better, "a warfare," hard conflict with evil (so in Isaiah 40:2 , Daniel 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 ( 1 Timothy 1:18 , 2 Timothy 2:3 , 2 Timothy 4:7 2 Timothy 4:8 ).

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 ( Acts 12:23 , Isaiah 14:11 ).
clods of dust--rather, a crust of dried filth and accumulated corruption ( Job 2:7 Job 2:8 ).
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" ( Psalms 58:7 ).

6. ( Isaiah 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 , 1 Chronicles 29:15 ).

7. Address to God.
Wind--a picture of evanescence ( Psalms 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 ( Ecclesiastes 11:7 ); so Hezekiah ( Isaiah 38:11 ). Grace rises above nature ( 2 Corinthians 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 ( Psalms 104:32 , Revelation 20:11 ). Not, "Thine eyes seek me and I am not to be found"; for God's eye penetrates even to the unseen world ( Psalms 139:8 ). UMBREIT unnaturally takes "thine" to refer to one of the three friends.

9. ( 2 Samuel 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.