John Gill Commentary Job 10

My soul is weary of my life
And yet nothing of a temporal blessing is more desirable than life; every man, generally speaking, is desirous of life, and of a long life too; soul and body are near and intimate companions, and are usually loath to part; but Job was weary of his life, willing to part with it, and longed to be rid of it; he "loathed" it, and so it may be here rendered ^F24 , he would not live always, (Job 7:15Job 7:16) ; his "soul" was uneasy to dwell any longer in the earthly tabernacle of his body, it being so full of pains and sores; for this weariness was not through the guilt of sin pressing him sore, or through the horror of conscience arising from it, so that he could not bear to live, as Cain and Judas; nor through indwelling sin being a burden to him, and a longing desire to be rid of it, and to be perfectly holy, to be with Christ in heaven, as the Apostle Paul, and other saints, at certain times; or through uneasiness at the sins of others, as Isaac and Rebekah, Lot, David, Isaiah, and others; nor on the account of the temptations of Satan, his fiery darts, his buffetings and siftings, which are very distressing;

but on account of his outward afflictions, which were so very hard and pressing, and the apprehension he had of the anger and wrath of God, he treating him, as he thought, very severely, and as his enemy, together with the ill usage of his friends. The Targum renders it, ``my soul is cut off in my life;'' or I am dying while I live, being in such pain of body, and distress of mind; and so other versions ^F25 :

I will leave my complaint upon myself :
not that he would leave complaining, or lay it aside, though some ^F26 render it to this sense; rather give a loose to it, and indulge it, than attempt to ease himself, and give vent to his grief and sorrow by it; but it should be "upon himself", a burden he would take upon himself, and not trouble others with it; he would not burden their ears with his complaints, but privately and secretly utter them to himself; for the word ^F1 used signifies "meditation", private discourse with himself, a secret and inward "bemoaning" of his case;

but he did not continue long in this mind, as appears by the following clause: or since I can do no other but complain; if there is any blame in it, I will take it wholly upon myself; complain I must, let what will be the consequence of it; see (Job 13:13) ; though the phrase may be rendered, as it is sometimes, "within myself", see (Hosea 11:8) ; ^F2 ; and then the sense may be, shall I leave my inward moan within myself, and no longer contain? I will give myself vent; and though I have been blamed for saying so much as I have, I will say yet more:

I will speak in the bitterness of my soul :
as one whose life is made bitter, against whom God had wrote and said bitter things, and had brought bitter afflictions upon him, which had occasioned bitter complaints in him, as well as he had been bitterly used by his friends; and amidst all this bitterness he is determined to speak out his mind freely and fully; or to speak "of the bitterness" ^F3 of his soul, and declare, by words, what he in his mind and body endured.

FOOTNOTES:

• F24: (yyxb yvpn hjqn) "fastidit anima mea vitam meam", Beza, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator.
• F25: "Excisa est anima mea in vita mea", Pagninus, Vatablus; so Ben Gersom & Ben Melech.
• F26: So Junius & Tremellius.
• F1: (yxyv) "meditationem meam", Schindler, col. 1823. "my sighing", Broughton.
• F2: (yle) "intra me". Vid. Noldium, p. 701.
• F3: (rmb) "in vel de a maritudine", Mercerus.

I will say unto God, do not condemn me
Not that he feared eternal condemnation; there is none to them that are in Christ, and believe in him as Job did; Christ's undertakings, sufferings, and death, secure his people from the condemnation of law and justice; nor, indeed, are the afflictions of God's people a condemnation of them, but a fatherly chastisement, and are in order to prevent their being condemned with the world; yet they may look as if they were, in the eyes of the men of the world, and they as very wicked persons; and so the word may be rendered, "do not account me wicked" ^F4, or treat me as a wicked man, by continuing your afflicting hand upon you; which, as long as it was on him, his friends would not believe but that he was a wicked man; wherefore, as God knew he was not such an one as they took him to be, he begs that he would not use him as such, that so the censure he lay under might be removed; and though he was condemned by them, he entreats that God would make it appear he was not condemned by him: and whereas he was not conscious to himself of any notorious wickedness done by him, which deserved such usage, he further prays,

show me wherefore you contend with me.
Afflictions are the Lord's controversy with his people, a striving, a contending with them; which are sometimes so sharp, that were they continued long, the spirits would fail before him, and the souls that he has made: now there is always a cause or reason for them, which God has in his own breast, though it is not always known to man, at least not at first, or as soon as the controversy or contention is begun; when God afflicts, it is either for sin, to prevent it, or purge from it, or to bring his people to a sense of it, to repent of it, and forsake it, or to try their graces, and make them more partakers of his holiness; and when good men, as Job, are at a loss about this, not being conscious of any gross iniquity committed, or a course of sin continued in, it is lawful, and right, and commendable, to inquire the reason of it, and learn, if possible, the end, design, and use of such dispensations.

FOOTNOTES:

• F4: (yneyvrt la) "neque judices me improbum", Vatablus; so Schultens.

[Is it] good unto you that you should oppress ?
&c.] This God does not approve of in others; he dehorts men from it; he threatens to punish those who do so, and to be a swift witness against them; he promises to arise to the help of the oppressed, and to be a refuge for them, and therefore will never do the same himself; it can never be pleasant to him, nor right and just in his sight, nor is it of any advantage to him.

Job here suggests that his afflictions were an oppression to him; and, indeed, no affliction is joyous, but grievous, and sometimes the hand of God presses hard and sore, but then there is no injury nor any injustice done, as the word ^F5 here used signifies. And he intimates also, as if God took some seeming delight and pleasure in thus oppressing him, and therefore expostulates with him about it, as if such conduct was not fit and becoming him, not agreeable to his perfections, and could afford neither pleasure nor profit. This, and what follows in this verse, are expostulations too bold and daring, and in which Job uses too much freedom with the Almighty, and in which he is not so modest as in (Job 10:2) :

that you should despise the work of your hands ?
which he tacitly insinuates he did. Job means himself, who, as to his body, and the several members of it, were the work of God's hands, curiously and wonderfully made by him, as is afterwards expressed; and as to his soul, and the powers and faculties of it, they were his make, who is the Father of spirits; and moreover, as a new man, he was made by him, was the workmanship of God, and a curious piece indeed, created after his image in righteousness and true holiness; and he was in every sense the work of his hands, or "the labour of his hands" ^F6 ; wrought with great care and labour, even with the "palms of his hands", as is the word ^F7 used.

And could Job think that God "despised" such a work?

He who, upon a survey of his works, said they were all very good; who forsakes not the work of his hands, nor despises the day of small things, could never do this; nor are afflictions to be interpreted in such a manner, as if God was indifferent unto, slighted and thought meanly of, what he himself has wrought;

since these are so far from having such a meaning, that they flow from that great respect he has for his own work, and are for the good of it:

and shine upon the counsel of the wicked ?
either the counsel of the wicked one, Satan, who moved God to afflict him in the manner he had, or of the Sabeans and Chaldeans, who thrived and prospered, notwithstanding the injury they had done him; or of his friends, who consulted to brand his character with hypocrisy;

or, rather, of wicked men in general, on whose counsel God may be thought to "shine", when it succeeds, and God seems to smile upon them in his providence, and they are in prosperous circumstances, and have what heart can wish, when good men are greatly afflicted; which sometimes has been a temptation, and greatly distressing, to the latter; see (Psalms 73:2–14) (Jeremiah 12:1Jeremiah 12:2) ;

but this is not always the case; the counsel of the froward is sometimes carried headlong, the counsel of the wise counsellors of Pharaoh is made brutish, and that of Ahithophel was defeated by him; and whenever he seems to countenance it, it is to answer some ends of his glory.

FOOTNOTES:

• F5: (qvet) "est opprimere vim injustam alicui facere", Schmidt.
• F6: (eygy) "laborem", Pagninus, Montanus, Schultens, Michaelis.
• F7: (Kypk) "volarum tuarum", Montanus, Bolducius.

Do you have eyes of flesh? &c.] God has eyes, but not fleshly ones; he has eyes of love, grace, and mercy, which are always upon his people for good, and are never withdrawn from them; and he has eyes of displeasure and wrath on sinful men, to destroy them; these are not made of flesh, or like the eyes of flesh and blood, or of men; fleshy eyes cannot see at any great distance, and only in one place at a time, and only one object after another; they cannot see in the dark, and what they are, and only outward objects; and in these they are sometimes deceived, and at length fail: but the eyes of God see all things, at the greatest distance; he looks down from heaven, and beholds all the children of men on earth, and all their actions; his eyes are in every place, beholding the evil and the good; he can see in the dark as well as in the light, the darkness and the light are both alike to him; he beholds not only outward actions and visible objects, but the hearts of men, and all that is in them; nor is he ever deceived, nor will his sight ever fail.

Though Job, perhaps, may mean carnal eyes; that is, evil ones, as especially envious ones are: "is your eye evil?" (Matthew 20:15); that is, envious; and it is as if Job should say, do you envy me my former prosperity and peace, that you search so narrowly into my conduct to find iniquity in me, and take advantage against me?

or do you see as man sees? look with hatred and envy, as one man does upon another: so seemed the dispensations of God towards Job, as if he did, as he suggests.

[Are] thy days as the days of man ?
&c.] No, they are not: not so few; the days of the years of man's life in common are threescore years and ten, (Psalms 90:10) ; but a thousand years with the Lord are but as one day, (2 Peter 3:8) ; his days are days not of time, but of eternity: nor so mutable, or he so mutable in them; man is of one mind today, and of another tomorrow; but the Lord is in one mind one day as another; he is the Lord that changes not, (Malachi 3:6) ; immutable in his nature, purposes, promises, and affections:

but Job suggests as if his dispensations towards him showed the contrary; one day smiling upon him, and heaping his favours on him, and the next frowning on him, and stripping him of all: but this was a wrong way of judging; for, though God may change the dispensations of his providence towards men, and particularly his own people, his nature changes not, nor does he change his will, his purposes, and designs, nor his love and affection:

[are] thy years as man's days ?
as few as they, or fail like them? no, he is the same, and his years fail not, and has the same good will to his people in adverse as well as in prosperous dispensations of his providence. Some understand all this in such sense, in connection with what follows, as if Job had observed, that since God was omniscient, and knew and saw all persons and things, his eyes not being like men's eyes, eyes of flesh; and since he was eternal, and wanted not for time, there was no need for him to take such methods as he did with him, through afflictive providences, to find out his sin; since, if he was guilty, it was at once known to him; nor need he be in such haste to do it, since his time was not short, as it is with an envious and ill natured man, who is for losing no time to find out and take an advantage of him he bears an ill will unto.