Job Chapter 10
1 "My soul is weary of my life. I will give free course to my complaint. I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.
2 I will tell God, 'Do not condemn me. Show me why you contend with me.
3 Is it good to you that you should oppress, that you should despise the work of your hands, and smile on the counsel of the wicked?
4 Do you have eyes of flesh? Or do you see as man sees?
5 Are your days as the days of mortals, or your years as man's years,
6 that you enquire after my iniquity, and search after my sin?
7 Although you know that I am not wicked, there is no one who can deliver out of your hand.
8 " 'Your hands have framed me and fashioned me altogether, yet you destroy me.
9 Remember, I beg you, that you have fashioned me as clay. Will you bring me into dust again?
10 Haven't you poured me out like milk, and curdled me like cheese?
11 You have clothed me with skin and flesh, and knit me together with bones and sinews.
12 You have granted me life and loving kindness. Your visitation has preserved my spirit.
13 Yet you hid these things in your heart. I know that this is with you:
14 if I sin, then you mark me. You will not acquit me from my iniquity.
15 If I am wicked, woe to me. If I am righteous, I still will not lift up my head, being filled with disgrace, and conscious of my affliction.
16 If my head is held high, you hunt me like a lion. Again you show yourself powerful to me.
17 You renew your witnesses against me, and increase your indignation on me. Changes and warfare are with me.
18 " 'Why, then, have you brought me out of the womb? I wish I had given up the spirit, and no eye had seen me.
19 I should have been as though I had not been. I should have been carried from the womb to the grave.
20 Aren't my days few? Stop! Leave me alone, that I may find a little comfort,
21 before I go where I will not return from, to the land of darkness and of the shadow of death;
22 the land dark as midnight, of the shadow of death, without any order, where the light is as midnight.' "
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Job Chapter 10 Guide
Notwithstanding all this, Job appealed to God. Turning from his answer to Bildad, he poured out his agony as in the presence of the Most High. It was by no means a hopeful appeal, but it was an appeal. He asked why God can contend with him, and with a terrible and yet sincere daring, born of affliction, he suggested questions:
Does God delight in what He is doing? Is God's vision faulty as man's that He cannot see? Are God's days and years brief that He is afraid Job may escape Him?
Following these questions, came his great appeal, which is also in the form of a question. God has made him. Why does He destroy him? This thought he carried out in detail on both sides, describing first his creation, and the graciousness of God's past dealing with him; and then the affliction, and his own inability to plead his cause. Once again he asked why he had been born, and in terrible anguish cried for God to let him alone a little that he might have brief respite ere he passed into death. The deepening of his sorrow is seen in this dark description of death. On a previous occasion it had been a land of rest and cessation, but now it is a place of darkness devoid of order. If we are tempted to criticize, we should ever remember that in the whole Book God lays no charge against His child. Terrible things were these which Job uttered about God, but at least they were honest.
From "An Exposition of the Whole Bible" by G. Campbell Morgan.
Job Chapter 10 Commentary
Chapter Outline
- Job complains of his hardships. -- (1-7)
- He pleads with God as his Maker. -- (8-13)
- He complains of God's severity. -- (14-22)
Verses 1-7
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.
Verses 8-13
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.
Verses 14-22
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.
From the "Concise Commentary on the Bible" by Matthew Henry.