Job 7:1-10

1 Has not man his ordered time of trouble on the earth? and are not his days like the days of a servant working for payment?
2 As a servant desiring the shades of evening, and a workman looking for his payment:
3 So I have for my heritage months of pain to no purpose, and nights of weariness are given to me.
4 When I go to my bed, I say, When will it be time to get up? but the night is long, and I am turning from side to side till morning light.
5 My flesh is covered with worms and dust; my skin gets hard and then is cracked again.
6 My days go quicker than the cloth-worker's thread, and come to an end without hope.
7 O, keep in mind that my life is wind: my eye will never again see good.
8 The eye of him who sees me will see me no longer: your eyes will be looking for me, but I will be gone.
9 A cloud comes to an end and is gone; so he who goes down into the underworld comes not up again.
10 He will not come back to his house, and his place will have no more knowledge of him.

Job 7:1-10 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO JOB 7

In this chapter Job goes on to defend himself in an address to God; as that he had reason to complain of his extraordinary afflictions, and wish for death; by observing the common case of mankind, which he illustrates by that of an hireling, Job 7:1; and justifies his eager desire of death by the servant and hireling; the one earnestly desiring the shadow, and the other the reward of his work, Job 7:2; by representing his present state as exceeding deplorable, even worse than that of the servant and hireling, since they had rest at night, when he had none, and were free from pain, whereas he was not, Job 7:3-5; by taking notice of the swiftness and shortness of his days, in which he had no hope of enjoying any good, Job 7:6,7; and so thought his case hard; and the rather, since after death he could enjoy no temporal good: and therefore to be deprived of it while living gave him just reason of complaint, Job 7:8-11; and then he expostulates with God for setting such a strict watch upon him; giving him no ease night nor day, but terrifying him with dreams and visions, which made life disagreeable to him, and death more eligible than that, Job 7:12-16; and represents man as unworthy of the divine regard, and below his notice to bestow favours on him, or to chastise him for doing amiss, Job 7:17,18; and admitting that he himself had sinned, yet he should forgive his iniquity, and not bear so hard upon him, and follow him with one affliction after another without intermission, and make him the butt of his arrows; but should spare him and let him alone, or however take him out of the world, Job 7:19-21.

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