Job 7:1

JOB 7

THE CONCLUSION OF JOB'S SECOND SPEECH

Job, in his agony and suffering, is not altogether coherent in this speech. Having affirmed his righteousness (Job 6:29), yet he wonders why God has not forgiven his transgression, some iniquity, perhaps, of which he has no knowledge (Job 7:20).

He stated here that those who go down into Sheol shall come up no more (Job 7:9); but afterward he would declare that after death, "in my flesh, I shall see God" (Job 19:26 KJV).

His reference to his flesh being clothed with worms (Job 7:5), "Could be either a figure of speech or literally true. We do not know; but, in any case, Job's body had become loathsome, and he suffered intense pain."[1] "In the first part of this chapter, Job justifies himself in his desire for death, and, in the latter part of it, he turns to God in prayer."[2]

Job 7:1-10

"Is there not a warfare for man upon earth?

And are not his days like the days of an hireling?

As a servant that earnestly desireth the shadow,

And as a hireling that looketh for his wages:

So am I made to possess months of misery,

And wearisome nights are appointed to me.

When I lie down, I say,

When shall I arise, and the night be gone?

And I am full of tossings to and fro unto the dawning of the day.

My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust;

My skin closeth up and breaketh out afresh.

My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle,

And are spent without hope.

Oh remember that my life is a breath:

Mine eye shall no more see good.

The eye of him that seeth me shall behold me no more;

Thine eyes shall be upon me, but I shall not be.

As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away,

So he that goeth down to Sheol shall come up no more.

He shall return no more to his house,

Neither shall his place know him anymore."

"Is there not a warfare for man upon the earth" (Job 7:1)? We like Adam Clarke's explanation of this. "Human life is a state of probation, a time of exercise to train us for eternal life. It is a warfare; we are enlisted in the Church Militant and must accomplish our time of service."[3] "And there is no discharge in that war" (Ecclesiastes 8:8).

"As the servant ... desireth the shadow, and ... an hireling looketh for his wages" (Job 7:2). Jamieson has the best comment on this we have seen. "If the servant longs for the evening when his wages are paid, why may not Job long for the close of his life of hard service, when he shall enter on his reward"?[4] This proves that Job did not, as many maintain, regard the grave as the end of everything, in spite of what he said later in Job 7:9.

"When I lie down, I say, When shall I arise" (Job 7:4). Paul Sherer explained Job's words in these verses thus: "What on earth was there to live for? With his days as long as empty months, and no shadow of the evening to bring him a little respite, there's nothing but tossings to and fro from dusk till dawn. Would God it were day! And every night, would God it were dawn"![5]

"He that goeth down to Sheol shall come up no more" (Job 7:9). Job does not, in these words, abandon all hope after death, but merely states a well-known truth that the dead do not return to their houses, nor are they seen any more by their contemporaries.