Job Continues: A Plea to God
1 Job, taking liberty of complaint, expostulated with God about his afflictions. 18 He complained of life and craved a little ease before death.
Job 10:1 “I loathe my very life; therefore I will give free rein to my complaint and speak out in the bitterness of my soul.
Job announces his intention to speak plainly. The three parts of the sentence have been described as “three convulsive sobs like the sparse large drops before the storm.”
Job 10:2 I say to God: Do not declare me guilty, but tell me what charges you have against me.
Job is again raising the unanswered question, “Why?” In the verses that follow, he examines one supposition after another as to why God treats him thus. These suppositions Job rejects as being out of harmony with God’s nature. The chapter ends with Job still confused as to the intentions and purposes of God.
Job 10:3 Does it please you to oppress me, to spurn the work of your hands, while you smile on the plans of the wicked?
Does God get any pleasure out of oppressing His creatures? God has made man. Why should He despise His workmanship? “How is it,” Job inquires, “that the wicked seem to be better treated than those who love God?”
Job 10:4 Do you have eyes of flesh? Do you see as a mortal sees?
Job’s second question: “Is God finite in His judgments—that He distributes rewards and punishments on the basis of a mistaken understanding of men’s merits?” His friends have misjudged him; perhaps God has misjudged him also.
Job 10:5 Are your days like those of a mortal or your years like those of a strong man,
Job’s third question: “Is God short-lived, therefore limited in experience and understanding? Does God expect soon to die, and therefore bear down on Job as if time were limited?”
As man’s days. Heb. kime geber, “like the days of a strong man.” The parallel expression in the preceding clause is a translation of kime ’enosh, “like the days of mankind.”
Job 10:6 that you must search out my faults and probe after my sin—
Job 10:7 though you know that I am not guilty and that no one can rescue me from your hand?
Two ideas appear throughout Job’s speeches: first, his sense of innocence; and second, his sense of helplessness. Job realizes that his questions (vs. 3 6) are so obviously out of harmony with God’s character that he cannot give them serious consideration. The distracted sufferer is back where he started, still faced with the taunting question, “Why?” Job 10:8 “Your hands shaped me and made me. Will you now turn and destroy me?
Who makes a beautiful vase only to be destroyed? Who molds a statue from marble only to break it in pieces? Who builds a splendid edifice only to pull it down? Who plants a rare and precious flower only to have the pleasure of plucking it up?
Job 10:9 Remember that you moulded me like clay. Will you now turn me to dust again?
9. As the clay. “Of clay” (LXX). See Job 33:6; Isa. 29:16; 45:9; Jer. 18:6; Rom. 9:20, 21. 10. Poured me out. This and the following verse are generally considered as descriptive of conception and embryonic development.
Job 10:10 Did you not pour me out like milk and curdle me like cheese,
Job 10:11 clothe me with skin and flesh and knit me together with bones and sinews?
Job 10:12 You gave me life and showed me kindness, and in your providence watched over my spirit.
Kindness. Heb. chesed. There is no one English word that adequately translates chesed. It is difficult to describe the character of God in human language. Job recognized the keeping power of God, from Job 10:9 Remember that you molded me like clay. Will you now turn me to dust again? his conception to full manhood, but this recognition only increases the question of why God is dealing with him now so severely.
Job 10:13 “But this is what you concealed in your heart, and I know that this was in your mind:
Job complains that God is too severe concerning small sins.
Job 10:14 If I sinned, you would be watching me and would not let my offense go unpunished.
Job 10:15 If I am guilty—woe to me! Even if I am innocent, I cannot lift my head, for I am full of shame and drowned in my affliction.
Job 10:16 If I hold my head high, you stalk me like a lion and again display your awesome power against me.
Job 10:17 You bring new witnesses against me and increase your anger toward me; your forces come against me wave upon wave.
The figure is probably that of armies, ever renewing their forces so as to maintain the pressure and momentum of their attacks.
Job 10:18 “Why then did you bring me out of the womb? I wish I had died before any eye saw me.
Job renews his lament regarding his birth (see ch. 3:1–13).
Job 10:19 If only I had never come into being, or had been carried straight from the womb to the grave!
Job 10:20 Are not my few days almost over? Turn away from me so I can have a moment’s joy
Plaintively, Job pleads for a little comfort before he dies.
Job 10:21 before I go to the place of no return, to the land of gloom and utter darkness,
The idea of darkness is stressed in this and the following verse. Various Hebrew terms are employed. In v. 21 the common word for darkness is used. It is immediately followed by the word translated “shadow of death,” which is poetic for the world of the dead.
Job 10:22 to the land of deepest night, of utter darkness and disorder, where even the light is like darkness.
Nothing describes death more vividly than darkness and chaos. Conversely, there are no better symbols of life than light and organization. A homiletical outline of ch. 10 has been suggested as follows: Verses 1–7: (1) sobbing in the ear of God, (2) pleading before the throne of God, (3) appealing to the heart of God.
Verses 8–17: (1) God’s former loving care, (2) God’s present cruel treatment. Verses 18–22: (1) A great mercy despised, (2) a sinful regret indulged, (3) a passionate entreaty offered, (4) a dismal future depicted.