Job 10

Notes

My soul bursts asunder with weariness of being detained in the cords of natural life. I will therefore permit my complaints to vent themselves freely, be the issue what it will. I will speak fervently in the bitter anguish of my soul. 2. I will say to God, Do not condemn and punish me as a wicked man, but cause me to know for what sin or reason I am so peculiarly afflicted. 3. Is it either pleasant, profitable, or honourable to thee, or is it just and equal, that thou shouldst spoil me of all I had, and thus load me with tormenting troubles: or that with an enraged mind thou shouldst contemn the work of thine hands as good for nothing but to be a spectacle of misery? or that, by thy providential dispensations, thou shouldst appear to confirm the thoughts or encourage the practices of the wicked? 4-6. Are thy views of my conduct and state short-sighted, biased, or malignant? Are thy days so short that thou must punish me in this sudden and severe manner all at once? Are thy researches after truth tedious that thou shouldst thus by tortures attempt to force a confession of guilt from me? 7. Thou canst not but know that I am no hypocrite, and that if thou punish, none can deliver me from thy judgments. 8. By thy creating power I have been curiously and elaborately bound together with sinews; bound together in my whole frame: and wilt thou, as a raging lion, utterly tear me asunder and swallow me up? 9. Remember that thou, as my Potter, hast formed me out of the clay; and wilt thou, in this sudden and fearful manner, so quickly reduce me to dust by death? 10. Didst thou not, in the womb, purify my substance as milk, and curdle and compact the liquid matter of which my body was framed? 11. Didst thou not cover my inward parts with skin and flesh, and curiously fence and weave me together with bones and sinews? 12. Didst thou not grant me the entrance and continuance of life? And hath not thy providential care and kindness preserved me from dangers and death? 13. And, notwithstanding, hadst thou a secret purpose thus to afflict me?—I find, by experience, that it was then determined with thee, 14. That if I should sin, thou wouldst watch over me to punish me, without the least patience, pardon, or pity. 15. That if I should be wicked, fearful judgments should fall upon me; and though I should live holy and innocent, I should nevertheless be oppressed with trouble. I am full of confusion and shame on account of my uncommon circumstances; therefore look with pity on my inexpressible misery. 16. Shall my trouble still increase and exalt itself over me? Wilt thou follow me close with plagues, as a fierce lion hunteth his prey? Wilt thou, by repeated strokes of judgment, set me up as a distinguished spectacle of thy marvellous power and wrath to all around me? 17. Wilt thou bring fresh plagues upon me as witnesses of thy continued displeasure? Wilt thou still afflict me more and more? Shall nothing but diverse forms and multitudes of trouble assault me? 18. Why then didst thou bring me out of the womb at all? Why did I not die in the womb, without ever being seen on this wretched earth? 19. Or die in the birth, that I might have been carried from the womb to the grave? 20. Shall not the momentary duration of my life quickly cease? Shall I not then be allowed a short reprieve from trouble, 21, 22. Before I go to the dark region of the grave, where there is no orderly succession of day and night, summer and winter, labour and rest, but one perpetual night of gross darkness?

Ver. 2. ['Do not condemn me' thus to suffer under thine own hand, and then under the unjust accusations of my friends, without showing why these complicated calamities are sent, and without any divine interference or human sympathy for their relief. C.]

Ver. 10. [The whole process of human nutrition is by milk poured out as a fluid, and then consolidated as cheese. This is not merely true of the child sustained by the maternal aliment, but equally true through all the after-stages of life. For whatever food is received into the stomach there undergoes the first process of digestion, and is afterwards farther changed into chyle; whence by the lacteals—an innumerable system of absorbent vessels—it is carried into the thoracic duct in the form of milk; next it is commingled with the blood, which it thus serves to renew; and being in that form carried throughout the whole body, it supplies the necessary repairs or increase to bone, muscle, and every other part of the frame. C.]

Ver. 11. [The whole process of the growth of the human body is here described by a few graphic touches, which show an extent of anatomical and physiological knowledge that may well surprise the thoughtful student. The last clause is particularly striking:—'Thou hast woven me, intertwined me about with bones and sinews.' P.]

Reflections.—To be weary of life before God sends us our discharge, is to be unfaithful to the post which he hath given us to maintain. In suffering times we should inquire into their cause that we may answer their end; and chiefly plead for the removal of our sin and of the condemnation on account of it. But those who are awed by the majesty of God often attempt easing their mind in sinful resentments. And under extraordinary troubles it is hard to forbear impeaching the goodness or equity of God by sinful murmurings. The most humble prayers are often mingled with the most peevish and proud expostulations. Neither the views of his omniscient discernment of all our sins, nor the almighty power of his correcting hand, can awe our souls into quiet submission. Nothing but the largest supplies of grace can bridle the tongue in such a case. But when God hides himself as a Saviour his work as a Maker and Preserver should lead us to admiration and thankfulness. When he changes his way towards us, we are to believe that he has reasons hid for it in his heart, which will be shortly manifested. Alas! how sin stares the best of men in the face when God lays them under heavy troubles! Happy are they whose iniquities are pardoned, and in whom the fruit of afflictions is to take away the sin that procured them. But if sins be great, troubles heavy, life and its comforts short, death and its darkness near, let us give ourselves unto prayer. Every trouble is a call from God; and every moment of reprieve from death is an opportunity to prepare for it.