Bible Commentaries

Job 10:1-22. Job‘s reply to Bildad continued.

leave my complaint upon myself — rather, “I will give loose to my complaint” (Job 7:11).

show me, etc. — Do not, by virtue of Thy mere sovereignty, treat me as guilty without showing me the reasons.

Job is unwilling to think God can have pleasure in using His power to “oppress” the weak, and to treat man, the work of His own hands, as of no value (Job 10:8; Psalm 138:8).

shine upon — favor with prosperity (Psalm 50:2).

Dost Thou see as feebly as man? that is, with the same uncharitable eye, as, for instance, Job‘s friends? Is Thy time as short? Impossible! Yet one might think, from the rapid succession of Thy strokes, that Thou hadst no time to spare in overwhelming me.

“Although Thou (the Omniscient) knowest,” etc. (connected with Job 10:6), “Thou searchest after my sin.”

and … that none that can deliver out of thine hand — Therefore Thou hast no need to deal with me with the rapid violence which man would use (see Job 10:6).

Made — with pains; implying a work of difficulty and art; applying to God language applicable only to man.

together round about — implying that the human body is a complete unity, the parts of which on all sides will bear the closest scrutiny.

clay — Job 10:10 proves that the reference here is, not so much to the perishable nature of the materials, as to their wonderful fashioning by the divine potter.

In the organization of the body from its rude commencements, the original liquid gradually assumes a more solid consistency, like milk curdling into cheese (Psalm 139:15, Psalm 139:16). Science reveals that the chyle circulated by the lacteal vessels is the supply to every organ.

fenced — or “inlaid” (Psalm 139:15); “curiously wrought” [Umbreit]. In the foetus the skin appears first, then the flesh, then the harder parts.

visitation — Thy watchful Providence.

spirit — breath.

is with thee — was Thy purpose. All God‘s dealings with Job in his creation, preservation, and present afflictions were part of His secret counsel (Psalm 139:16; Acts 15:18; Ecclesiastes 3:11).

Job is perplexed because God “marks” every sin of his with such ceaseless rigor. Whether “wicked” (godless and a hypocrite) or “righteous” (comparatively sincere), God condemns and punishes alike.

lift up my head — in conscious innocence (Psalm 3:3).

see thou — rather, “and seeing I see (I too well see) mine affliction,” (which seems to prove me guilty) [Umbreit].

increaseth — rather, “(if) I lift up (my head) Thou wouldest hunt me,” etc. [Umbreit].

and again — as if a lion should not kill his prey at once, but come back and torture it again.

witnesses — His accumulated trials were like a succession of witnesses brought up in proof of his guilt, to wear out the accused.

changes and war — rather, “(thou settest in array) against me host after host” (literally, “changes and a host,” that is, a succession of hosts); namely, his afflictions, and then reproach upon reproach from his friends.

But, since I was destined from my birth to these ills, at least give me a little breathing time during the few days left me (Job 9:34; Job 13:21; Psalm 39:13).

The ideas of order and light, disorder and darkness, harmonize (Genesis 1:2). Three Hebrew words are used for darkness; in Job 10:21 (1) the common word “darkness”; here (2) “a land of gloom” (from a Hebrew root, “to cover up”); (3) as “thick darkness” or blackness (from a root, expressing sunset). “Where the light thereof is like blackness.” Its only sunshine is thick darkness. A bold figure of poetry. Job in a better frame has brighter thoughts of the unseen world. But his views at best wanted the definite clearness of the Christian‘s. Compare with his words here Revelation 21:23; Revelation 22:5; 2 Timothy 1:10.