Job 7:1-21
Job: My Suffering Is Comfortless
1 ”Is there not a time of hard service for man on earth?
Are not his days also like the days of a hired man?
2 Like a servant who earnestly desires the shade,
And like a hired man who eagerly looks for his wages,
3 So I have been allotted months of futility,
And wearisome nights have been appointed to me.
4 When I lie down, I say, ‘When shall I arise,
And the night be ended?’
For I have had my fill of tossing till dawn.
5 My flesh is caked with worms and dust,
My skin is cracked and breaks out afresh.
6 “My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle,
And are spent without hope.
7 Oh, remember that my life is a breath!
My eye will never again see good.
8 The eye of him who sees me will see me no more;
While your eyes are upon me, I shall no longer be.
9 As the cloud disappears and vanishes away,
So he who goes down to the grave does not come up.
10 He shall never return to his house,
Nor shall his place know him anymore.
11 “Therefore I will not restrain my mouth;
I will speak in the anguish of my spirit;
I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.
12 Am I a sea, or a sea serpent,
That You set a guard over me?
13 When I say, ‘My bed will comfort me,
My couch will ease my complaint,’
14 Then You scare me with dreams
And terrify me with visions,
15 So that my soul chooses strangling
And death rather than my body.
16 I loathe my life;
I would not live forever.
Let me alone,
For my days are but a breath.
17 “What is man, that You should exalt him,
That You should set Your heart on him,
18 That You should visit him every morning,
And test him every moment?
19 How long?
Will You not look away from me,
And let me alone till I swallow my saliva?
20 Have I sinned?
What have I done to You, O watcher of men?
Why have You set me as Your target,
So that I am a burden to myself?
21 Why then do You not pardon my transgression,
And take away my iniquity?
For now I will lie down in the dust,
And You will seek me diligently,
But I will no longer be.”
Job vented his endless suffering to his friends as if speaking to God and not them in this discourse of suffering without relief in sight not any apparent reason for it all. He spoke of being as a hired servant who has nothing but futility in his endeavors and sleepless nights at the end of each day of toil, looking only for his wages at the end of long days when he can find his bed to recover. He then pauses to look at his body with its worms and dust covering the boils cracking his skin open (Job 2:7-8) over and over. His days passed by swiftly and without any more hope after suffering so long; he realized his mortality, that his life is as a short breath that is exhaled and gone away as a cloud moving across the sky or a body buried and not rising again from the dead and never able to return home again. Job went on to vent his anguish over his sorry state of a bitter soul that could not understand what he did or why he was suffering so badly. Thinking that going to sleep would ease the pain and suffering, he only saw that going to bed amplified his suffering with dreams of terror and desire to strangle his anguished soul instead of his suffering body. He ended up loathing his life the way it was now compared to how he started in prosperity (Job 1:1, 3) and as a leader of the community who lived a righteous life before the face of God, as much as possible for any mortal son of Adam. Job then questioned God how He could set His heart on any man to visit and test him daily, moving into asking if he sinned in some unknown way to cause the Almighty to look away suddenly from him after all that he had in the past and make him a target of suffering instead of forgiving his transgressions and taking away his sins’ penalties. He knew that even then Gods would diligently seek him as he lay down in the dust of sorrow to death, knowing the grace of God in some measure of his understanding in the blinded state of his extreme suffering. How we can lose sight of the grace and providence of our Lord when we also suffer, especially when we suffer for righteousness and not for our sin as deserving the consequences of it all. We can take heart knowing that suffering for doing right (1 Peter 4:12-13, 19) does not mean we have a life free of adversity, for the adversary attacks us and God allows us to be tested (2 Chronicles 16:9, 1 Peter 1:6-7) to be refined in the fire of suffering to trust and glorify Him even more for all we are and possess. May we then choose to suffer according to the will of God by committing our souls to Him in doing good, as to a faithful Creator, by faith in His working all for our good and His glory until we find relief from our suffering.
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