Albert Barnes Commentary Job 10

My soul is weary of my life - compare the note at Job 7:16. The margin here is, Or, “cut off while I live.” The meaning in the margin is in accordance with the interpretation of Schultens. The Chaldee also renders it in a similar way: אתגזרת נפשי - my soul is cut off. But the more correct interpretation is that in our common version; and the sense is, that his soul, that is, that he himself was disgusted with life. It was a weary burden, and he wished to die.

I will leave my complaint upon myself - Noyes, “I will give myself up to complaint.” Dr. Good, “I will let loose from myself my dark thoughts.” The literal sense is, “I will leave complaint upon myself;” that is, I will give way to it; I will not restrain it; compare Job 7:11.

I will speak in the bitterness of my soul - See the notes on Job 7:11.

I will say unto God, Do not condemn me - Do not hold me to be wicked - תרשׁיעני אל 'al tarshı̂y‛ēnı̂y. The sense is, “Do not simply hold me to be wicked, and treat me as such, without showing me the reasons why I am so regarded.” This was the ground of Job’s complaint, that God by mere sovereignty and power held him to be a wicked man, and that he did not see the reasons why he was so considered and treated. He now desired to know in what he had offended, and to be made acquainted with the cause of his sufferings. The idea is, that it was unjust to treat one as guilty who had no opportunity of knowing the nature of the offence with which he was charged, or the reason why he was condemned.

Is it good to you that you should oppress—The sense of this is that it could not be with God a matter of personal gratification to inflict pain wantonly. There must be a reason why he did it. This was clear to Job, and he was anxious, therefore, to know the reason why he was treated in this manner. Yet there is evidently quite a bit of the spirit of complaining here. There is an insinuation that God was afflicting him beyond what he deserved; see Job 10:7.

The state of his mind appears to have been this: he is conscious that he is a sincere friend of God, and he is unwilling to believe that God can wantonly inflict pain—and yet he has no other way of accounting for it. He is, in a way, driven to this painful conclusion, and he asks with deep feeling, whether it can be so.

Is there no other solution than this? Is there no way of explaining the fact that he suffers so much, other than either the supposition that he is a hypocrite—which he feels assured he is not—or that God took a wanton pleasure in inflicting pain—which he was just as unwilling to believe, if he could avoid it? Yet his mind rather leans toward this latter belief, for he seems more disposed to believe that God was severe than that he himself was a hypocrite and a wicked man. Neither of these conclusions was necessary. If he had taken a middle ground and had considered the fact that God might afflict his own children for their good, the mystery would have been solved. He could have retained the consciousness of his integrity and, at the same time, his confidence in God.

That you should despise the work of your hands—(Margin: labor). That is, despise man, or treat him as if he were of no value. The idea is that it would be natural for God to love his own work, and that his treatment of Job seemed as if he regarded his own workmanship—man—as of no value.

And shine upon the counsel of the wicked—By giving them health and prosperity.

Do you have eyes of flesh? Eyes like a human. Do you look upon humans with the same disposition to discern faults; the same uncharitableness and inclination to construe everything in the severest manner possible, which characterizes humans? Possibly Job may be referring here to the harsh judgment of his friends, and means to ask whether it could be possible for God to evince the same feelings in judging him that they had.

Are your days as the days of man? - Does your life pass on like that of man? Do you expect soon to die, that you pursue me in this manner, searching out my sins, and afflicting me as if there were no time to lose?

The idea is, that God seemed to press this matter as if He were soon to cease to exist, and as if there were no time to spare in accomplishing it. His strokes were uninterrupted, as if it were necessary that the work should be done soon, and as if no respite could be given for a full and fair development of the real character of the sufferer.

The whole passage (Job 10:4–7) expresses the settled conviction of Job that God could not resemble man. Man was short-lived, fickle, blind; he was incapable, from the brevity of his existence and from his imperfections, of correctly judging the character of others. But it could not be so with God. He was eternal. He knew the heart. He saw everything as it was. Why, then, Job asks with deep feeling, did He deal with him as if He were influenced by the methods of judgment which were inseparable from the condition of imperfect and dying man?