Job 7:1 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters | Metropolitan Tabernacle

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Job 7:1

Comments

In chapter 7, Job complains bitterly and feels sure he will die. (Commentators vary in deciding at which verse in this chapter he begins to cry to God. Some say verse 7, others verse 17, which would make the complaints of verses 12-16 complaints against the fault-finding comforters, rather than the Lord.)Job is now justifying himself to Eliphaz. He presents this gloomy perspective on life. ‘Is there not an appointed time to man’ – he uses a word for ‘appointed time’ which refers to warfare. Some of the modern versions translate this as ‘time of warfare’, but the KJV brings out the sense better. It is as if man is enlisted and unable to free himself: he must complete the course of life. Man is fallen – Job uses the Hebrew word referring to man’s weakness, frailty, and mortality. A slave longs for the end of the day; he longs for the night to come for when his master will not be able to wring any more work out of him. Job’s allotted days on earth are like the days of a hired worker. The work is hard and tiring, and the hireling consoles himself by thinking about the time when it will all come to an end. He labours under the heat of the sun, and compels his limbs to keep going in the effort to complete the task. That is a constant pressure, but he has to go through with it. At the end he will be able to rest. Life is as wearisome and painful as that to Job. He is being very negative. Already he has a wrong way of thinking, and is getting contentious even towards God. In speaking of the months of his vanity, he is of course exaggerating. He has not been in this condition for months. The nights which should bring rest are instead a torment to him. In his sleepless state the hours drag as he waits for the morning amidst his tossing and turning. Verse 5 seems to be literal rather than figurative. It gives us a description of Job’s terrible physical condition. His skin is broken and foul, and he has become an object of loathing, of disgust, to himself and others. Though the hours of the night are long drawn out, as he looks back, the sum total of his life seems to count for nothing and, like a weaver’s shuttle zipping from one side of the loom to the other, it is over in a moment. Even in his suffering, Job still felt life to be precious, and yet he sensed that his days were being rapidly taken from him leaving him no hope.

Application

Job is close to despair, yet he still prays to God. His believing instincts drove him to seek relief, even from the one who seemed to be against him. There was none other to whom he could turn. Christ taught his disciples always to pray and not to faint, and this prayer of Job, though it is not without blame, is better than silence. Nevertheless, the believer in such circumstances must struggle hard to maintain reverence before God, and to suppress his complaints, reminding himself of how little he understands of the ways of God.

The real deficiency of Job in all this lies in the fact that, though a true believer, he could see nothing to lessen his suffering. He could not see that God might have a purpose, nor could he even look forward to meeting his Saviour. Do we share Job’s awful deficiency when under trial? Job had to learn in a very hard way that God always has a reason. What a difference it would have made to him to know why all this was happening. He would surely then have borne it in an entirely different spirit. But it was part of his trial that he must for the time being endure these things without having an explanation. We too are taught by the apostle that ‘all things work together for good to them that love God’ (Romans 8:28), but God does not explain to us the reason for every particular hardship and trial. Faith must learn to see in them what is invisible to sight.

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Job 7:1 Commentary and Bible Study