1“My spirit is broken; my days are extinguished; the grave awaits me. 2Surely mockers surround me, and my eyes must gaze at their rebellion. 3Give me, I pray, the pledge You demand. Who else will be my guarantor? 4You have closed their minds to understanding; therefore You will not exalt them. 5If a man denounces his friends for a price, the eyes of his children will fail. 6He has made me a byword among the people, a man in whose face they spit. 7My eyes have grown dim with grief, and my whole body is but a shadow. 8The upright are appalled at this, and the innocent are stirred against the godless. 9Yet a righteous one holds to his way, and the one with clean hands grows stronger. 10But come back and try again, all of you. For I will not find a wise man among you. 11My days have passed; my plans are broken off— even the desires of my heart. 12They have turned night into day, making light seem near in the face of darkness. 13If I look for Sheol as my home, if I spread out my bed in darkness, 14and say to corruption, ‘You are my father,’ and to the worm, ‘My mother,’ or ‘My sister,’ 15where then is my hope? Who can see any hope for me? 16Will it go down to the gates of Sheol? Will we go down together into the dust?”
Matthew Henry's Commentary
Job appeals from man to God. (1-9) His hope is not in life, but in death. (10-16) 1-9 Job reflects upon the harsh censures his friends had passed upon him, and, looking on himself as a dying man, he appeals to God. Our time is ending. It concerns us carefully to redeem the days of time, and to spend them in getting ready for eternity. We see the good use the righteous should make of Job's afflictions from God, from enemies, and from friends. Instead of being discouraged in the service of God, by the hard usage this faithful servant of God met with, they should be made bold to proceed and persevere therein. Those who keep their eye upon heaven as their end, will keep their feet in the paths of religion as their way, whatever difficulties and discouragements they may meet with. 10-16 Job's friends had pretended to comfort him with the hope of his return to a prosperous estate; he here shows that those do not go wisely about the work of comforting the afflicted, who fetch their comforts from the possibility of recovery in this world. It is our wisdom to comfort ourselves, and others, in distress, with that which will not fail; the promise of God, his love and grace, and a well-grounded hope of eternal life. See how Job reconciles himself to the grave. Let this make believers willing to die; it is but going to bed; they are weary, and it is time that they were in their beds. Why should not they go willingly when their Father calls them? Let us remember our bodies are allied to corruption, the worm and the dust; and let us seek for that lively hope which shall be fulfilled, when the hope of the wicked shall be put out in darkness; that when our bodies are in the grave, our souls may enjoy the rest reserved for the people of God.