Even today [is] my complaint bitter
Job's afflictions were continued on him long; he was made to
possess months of vanity; and, as he had been complaining ever
since they were upon him, he still continued to complain to that
day, "even" after all the comforts his friends pretended to
administer to him, as Jarchi observes: his complaints were
concerning his afflictions, and his friends' ill usage of him
under them; not of injustice in God in afflicting him, though he
thought he dealt severely with him; but of the greatness of his
afflictions, they being intolerable, and his strength unequal to
them, and therefore death was more eligible to him than life; and
he complained of God's hiding his face from him, and not hearing
him, nor showing him wherefore he contended with him, nor
admitting an hearing of his cause before him: and this complaint
of his was "bitter": the things he complained of were such,
bitter afflictions, like the waters of Marah the Israelites could
not drink of, ( Exodus 15:23
) ; there was a great deal of wormwood and gall in his affliction
and misery; and it was in a bitter way, in the bitterness of his
soul, he made his complaint; and, what made his case still worse,
he could not utter any complaint, so much as a sigh or a groan,
but it was reckoned "provocation", or "stubbornness [and]
rebellion", by his friends; so some render the word F24, as
Mr. Broughton does, "this day my sighing is holden a rebellion":
there is indeed a great deal of rebellion oftentimes in the
hearts, words and actions, conduct and behaviour, even of good
men under afflictions, as were in the Israelites in the
wilderness; and a difficult thing it is to complain without being
guilty of it; though complaints may be without it, yet repinings
and murmurings are always attended with it:
and my stroke is heavier than my groaning;
or "my hand" F25, meaning either his own hand, which
was heavy, and hung down, his spirits failing, his strength being
exhausted, and so his hands weak, feeble, and remiss, that he
could not hold them up through his afflictions, and his groanings
under them, see ( Psalms 102:5
) ( Hebrews
12:12 ) ; or the hand of God upon him, his afflicting hand,
which had touched him and pressed hard upon him, and lay heavy,
and was heavier than his groanings showed; though he groaned
much, he did not groan more, nor so much, as his afflictions
called for; and therefore it was no wonder that his complaint was
bitter, nor should it be reckoned rebellion and provocation; see
( Job 6:2 Job 6:3 ) ( 19:24 ) .