Charles Ellicott Commentary Job 7

When I lie down, I say. —Or, When I lie down, then I say, When shall I arise? But the night is long, and I am filled with tossings to and fro till the morning twilight.

With worms and clods of dust. —It is characteristic of Elephantiasis that the skin becomes hard, wrinkled, and ridged, and then cracks and becomes ulcerated.

Shall see me no more. —That is, your own eyes shall look for me, but I shall be no more. So Septuagint and Vulgate.

As the cloud is consumed. —It is a fine simile that man is as evanescent as a cloud; and very apt is the figure, because, whether it vanishes on the surface of the sky or is distributed in rain, nothing more completely passes away than the summer cloud. It is an appearance only, which comes to nothing.

Neither shall his place ... —This language is imitated in Psalms 103:16. We need not press the meaning of these words too much, as though they forbade our ascribing to Job any belief in a future life or in the resurrection. This is because, under any circumstances, they are evidently and accurately true of man as we know him in this present life. Even though he may live again in another way, he does not live again in this world; and it is of this world, and of man in this world, that Job is speaking.

And man, in the aspect of his mortality, is truly a pitiable object, demanding our compassion and sympathy. Thankfully, the appeal to man’s Maker is not in vain, and He who has made him what he is has looked upon his misery. Consequently Job can say, therefore, “I will not refrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.”