Job10
American Standard Version · Public Domain
1My soul is weary of my life; I will give free course to my complaint; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.
2I will say unto God, Do not condemn me; Show me wherefore thou contendest with me.
3Is it good unto thee that thou shouldest oppress, That thou shouldest despise the work of thy hands, And shine upon the counsel of the wicked?
4Hast thou eyes of flesh? Or seest thou as man seeth?
5Are thy days as the days of man, Or thy years as man’s days,
6That thou inquirest after mine iniquity, And searchest after my sin,
7Although thou knowest that I am not wicked, And there is none that can deliver out of thy hand?
8Thy hands have framed me and fashioned me Together round about; yet thou dost destroy me.
9Remember, I beseech thee, that thou hast fashioned me as clay; And wilt thou bring me into dust again?
10Hast thou not poured me out as milk, And curdled me like cheese?
11Thou hast clothed me with skin and flesh, And knit me together with bones and sinews.
12Thou hast granted me life and lovingkindness; And thy visitation hath preserved my spirit.
13Yet these things thou didst hide in thy heart; I know that this is with thee:
14If I sin, then thou markest me, And thou wilt not acquit me from mine iniquity.
15If I be wicked, woe unto me; And if I be righteous, yet shall I not lift up my head; Being filled with ignominy, And looking upon mine affliction.
16And if my head exalt itself, thou huntest me as a lion; And again thou showest thyself marvellous upon me.
17Thou renewest thy witnesses against me, And increasest thine indignation upon me: Changes and warfare are with me.
18Wherefore then hast thou brought me forth out of the womb? I had given up the ghost, and no eye had seen me.
19I should have been as though I had not been; I should have been carried from the womb to the grave.
20Are not my days few? cease then, And let me alone, that I may take comfort a little,
21Before I go whence I shall not return, Even to the land of darkness and of the shadow of death;
22The land dark as midnight, The land of the shadow of death, without any order, And where the light is as midnight.
Study Guide
Public-domain commentary and original-language notes for Job 10.
Chapter Summary
In this chapter: Job complains of his hardships. (1–7). He pleads with God as his Maker. (8–13). He complains of God's severity. (14–22).
vv1-7
Job, being weary of his life, resolves to complain, but he will not charge God with unrighteousness. Here is a prayer that he might be delivered from the sting of his afflictions, which is sin. When God afflicts us, he contends with us; when he contends with us, there is always a reason; and it is desirable to know the reason, that we may repent of and forsake the sin for which God has a controversy with us. But when, like Job, we speak in the bitterness of our souls, we increase guilt and vexation. Let us harbour no hard thoughts of God; we shall hereafter see there was no cause for them. Job is sure that God does not discover things, nor judge of them, as men do; therefore he thinks it strange that God continues him under affliction, as if he must take time to inquire into his sin.
vv8-13
Job seems to argue with God, as if he only formed and preserved him for misery. God made us, not we ourselves. How sad that those bodies should be instruments of unrighteousness, which are capable of being temples of the Holy Ghost! But the soul is the life, the soul is the man, and this is the gift of God. If we plead with ourselves as an inducement to duty, God made me and maintains me, we may plead as an argument for mercy, Thou hast made me, do thou new-make me; I am thine, save me.
vv14-22
Job did not deny that as a sinner he deserved his sufferings; but he thought that justice was executed upon him with peculiar rigour. His gloom, unbelief, and hard thoughts of God, were as much to be ascribed to Satan's inward temptations, and his anguish of soul, under the sense of God's displeasure, as to his outward trials, and remaining depravity. Our Creator, become in Christ our Redeemer also, will not destroy the work of his hands in any humble believer; but will renew him unto holiness, that he may enjoy eternal life. If anguish on earth renders the grave a desirable refuge, what will be their condition who are condemned to the blackness of darkness for ever? Let every sinner seek deliverance from that dreadful state, and every believer be thankful to Jesus, who delivereth from the wrath to come.
Key Words
חַי: alive; hence, raw (flesh); fresh (plant, water, year), strong; also (as noun, especially in the feminine singular and masculine plural) life (or living thing), whether literally or figuratively
עָזַב: to loosen, i.e. relinquish, permit, etc.
שִׂיחַ: a contemplation; by implication, an utterance
דָבַר: perhaps properly, to arrange; but used figuratively (of words), to speak; rarely (in a destructive sense) to subdue
מַר: bitter (literally or figuratively); also (as noun) bitterness, or (adverbially) bitterly
נֶפֶשׁ: properly, a breathing creature, i.e. animal of (abstractly) vitality; used very widely in a literal, accommodated or figurative sense (bodily or mental)
אָמַר: to say (used with great latitude)
אֱלוֹהַּ: a deity or the Deity
רָשַׁע: to be (causatively, do or declare) wrong; by implication, to disturb, violate
טוֹב: to be (transitively, do or make) good (or well) in the widest sense
Cross References
Job 10Slight verbal echo and deep thematic parallel to the wondrous, gradual fashioning of the human body in utero.
Supported by JFB
Contrasts Job's fear that God despises His own handiwork with the Psalmist's assurance of God's enduring care.
Supported by JFB
Identical phrase asserting the sovereign, absolute power of God: "neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand."
Supported by Matthew Poole
Uses the same physical imagery of God's hands making and fashioning a person, pleading for divine mercy.
Supported by Matthew Henry
Parallels Job's recurring bitter lamentation and desire that he had died in or immediately after the womb.
Supported by Matthew Henry, Matthew Poole
Identical desperate prayer to be spared and left alone to recover strength before passing away.
Supported by JFB
Contrasts human eyes that look only on outward appearances with God's search of the heart.
Supported by Matthew Henry, Matthew Poole
Echoes Job's complaint that God strictly tracks, marks, and searches out his microscopic, minute errors.
Supported by Matthew Poole
Illuminates Job's clay/potter imagery representing human frailty and God's absolute sovereign shaping of man.
Supported by Matthew Henry, JFB
Parallels the terrifying, graphic metaphor of God actively hunting and attacking the sufferer like a fierce lion.
Supported by Matthew Henry, JFB
Direct parallel in phrasing where Job expresses that his soul loathes and is weary of his life.
Supported by Matthew Henry, JFB
Contrasts Job's fear that God despises His work with his later hope that God will yearn for it.
Supported by JFB
Similar lamentation of God lying in wait and attacking the sufferer like a bear or a lion.
Supported by Matthew Henry
Job's consistent, grim description of death as a place of absolute finality from which none return.
Supported by Matthew Poole