1“I loathe my own life; I will express my complaint and speak in the bitterness of my soul. 2I will say to God: Do not condemn me! Let me know why You prosecute me. 3Does it please You to oppress me, to reject the work of Your hands and favor the schemes of the wicked? 4Do You have eyes of flesh? Do You see as man sees? 5Are Your days like those of a mortal, or Your years like those of a man, 6that You should seek my iniquity and search out my sin— 7though You know that I am not guilty, and there is no deliverance from Your hand? 8Your hands shaped me and altogether formed me. Would You now turn and destroy me? 9Please remember that You molded me like clay. Would You now return me to dust? 10Did You not pour me out like milk, and curdle me like cheese? 11You clothed me with skin and flesh, and knit me together with bones and sinews. 12You have granted me life and loving devotion, and Your care has preserved my spirit. 13Yet You concealed these things in Your heart, and I know that this was in Your mind: 14If I sinned, You would take note, and would not acquit me of my iniquity. 15If I am guilty, woe to me! And even if I am righteous, I cannot lift my head. I am full of shame and aware of my affliction. 16Should I hold my head high, You would hunt me like a lion, and again display Your power against me. 17You produce new witnesses against me and multiply Your anger toward me. Hardships assault me in wave after wave. 18Why then did You bring me from the womb? Oh, that I had died, and no eye had seen me! 19If only I had never come to be, but had been carried from the womb to the grave. 20Are my days not few? Withdraw from me, that I may have a little comfort, 21before I go—never to return— to a land of darkness and gloom, 22to a land of utter darkness, of deep shadow and disorder, where even the light is like darkness.”
Matthew Henry's Commentary
Job complains of his hardships. (1-7) He pleads with God as his Maker. (8-13) He complains of God's severity. (14-22) 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. 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. 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.