Job 10:5

5 Unlike us, you're not working against a deadline. You have all eternity to work things out.

Job 10:5 Meaning and Commentary

Job 10:5

[Are] thy days as the days of man?
&c.] No, they are not: not so few; the days of the years of man's life in common are threescore years and ten, ( Psalms 90:10 ) ; but a thousand years with the Lord are but as one day, ( 2 Peter 3:8 ) ; his days are days not of time, but of eternity: nor so mutable, or he so mutable in them; man is of one mind today, and of another tomorrow; but the Lord is in one mind one day as another; he is the Lord that changes not, ( Malachi 3:6 ) ; immutable in his nature, purposes, promises, and affections: but Job suggests as if his dispensations towards him showed the contrary; one day smiling upon him, and heaping his favours on him, and the next frowning on him, and stripping him of all: but this was a wrong way of judging; for, though God may change the dispensations of his providence towards men, and particularly his own people, his nature changes not, nor does he change his will, his purposes, and designs, nor his love and affection:

[are] thy years as man's days?
as few as they, or fail like them? no, he is the same, and his years fail not, and has the same good will to his people in adverse as well as in prosperous dispensations of his providence. Some understand all this in such sense, in connection with what follows, as if Job had observed, that since God was omniscient, and knew and saw all persons and things, his eyes not being like men's eyes, eyes of flesh; and since he was eternal, and wanted not for time, there was no need for him to take such methods as he did with him, through afflictive providences, to find out his sin; since, if he was guilty, it was at once known to him; nor need he be in such haste to do it, since his time was not short, as it is with an envious and ill natured man, who is for losing no time to find out and take an advantage of him he bears an ill will unto.

Job 10:5 In-Context

3 How does this fit into what you once called 'good' - giving me a hard time, spurning me, a life you shaped by your very own hands, and then blessing the plots of the wicked?
4 You don't look at things the way we mortals do. You're not taken in by appearances, are you?
5 Unlike us, you're not working against a deadline. You have all eternity to work things out.
6 So what's this all about, anyway - this compulsion to dig up some dirt, to find some skeleton in my closet?
7 You know good and well I'm not guilty. You also know no one can help me.
Published by permission. Originally published by NavPress in English as THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright 2002 by Eugene Peterson. All rights reserved.