The Divine Obsession: Man Under God's Microscope Text: Job 7:17-21
Introduction: The Ache of Being Watched
We live in a therapeutic age, an age that has made an idol out of self esteem. Our entire culture is geared toward making man feel good about himself, to assure him that he is the center of his own story, and that the universe, if it is paying attention at all, ought to be applauding. The modern man wants a God who is a celestial grandfather, affirming and distant, a God who minds His own business. But the God of the Scriptures is not that kind of God. He is intensely, uncomfortably, and gloriously interested in the affairs of men.
The book of Job is a fierce corrective to all our sentimental notions about God and suffering. Job, stripped of everything, sitting on an ash heap, scraping his sores with a piece of pottery, is not interested in polite theology. He is in the crucible, and his words are raw, honest, and directed squarely at the God who has allowed his world to be dismantled. Job is not an atheist; he is the opposite of an atheist. His problem is not that God is absent, but that He is terrifyingly present. He feels the full weight of God's unblinking gaze, and it is crushing him.
This passage is a bitter parody of Psalm 8. Where the Psalmist asks in wonder, "What is man that You are mindful of him?" Job asks it with sarcasm and despair. For the Psalmist, God's attention is a source of dignity and glory. For Job, it is a source of torment. He feels like a specimen under a divine microscope, a target set up for divine target practice. He is wrestling with a truth that our generation has done everything to forget: that to be noticed by a holy God is a weighty and fearsome thing, especially when you are a sinner.
Job's complaint is not the complaint of a man who has rejected God. It is the cry of a man who cannot escape Him. And in his honest, agonized cry, we find a profound truth about the nature of God's relentless, sovereign love. It is a love that does not leave us alone, a love that examines, tests, and ultimately, a love that forgives. But before you get to the comfort, you must pass through the fire of being known by God.
The Text
What is man that You magnify him,
And that You set Your heart on him,
That You examine him every morning
And test him every moment?
Will You never turn Your gaze away from me,
Nor let me alone until I swallow my spit?
Have I sinned? What have I done to You,
O watcher of men?
Why have You set me as Your target,
So that I am a burden to myself?
Why then do You not forgive my transgression
And take away my iniquity?
For now I will lie down in the dust;
And You will seek me earnestly, but I will not be.
(Job 7:17-21 LSB)
An Unwanted Dignity (v. 17-18)
Job begins with a question dripping with pain and irony.
"What is man that You magnify him, And that You set Your heart on him, That You examine him every morning And test him every moment?" (Job 7:17-18)
Job is echoing the language of worship, but he has inverted it. The Psalmist looks at the cosmos and is stunned that the Creator of such grandeur would pay any mind to frail man, crowning him with glory and honor (Psalm 8:4-5). Job looks at his own shattered life and is appalled by the same attention. "Why magnify me?" he asks. Why make me so important? This is not the magnification of honor, but the magnification of a target. It is the kind of attention a scientist gives to a microbe on a slide before dissecting it.
God "sets His heart" on man. This is covenant language. It speaks of a focused, intentional, and sovereign regard. But for Job, this loving focus feels like a hostile obsession. This is what it feels like to be on the receiving end of God's refining fire when you don't understand the purpose of the heat. God is examining him "every morning." There is no respite. With the rising of the sun comes a fresh round of divine scrutiny. He tests him "every moment." The pressure is constant, unrelenting. There is no break, no cease-fire.
This is a central truth of the Christian life that we often want to airbrush out of the picture. God is intensely interested in our sanctification. He is committed to making us holy, and He uses trials to do it. Peter tells us not to be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes to test us (1 Peter 4:12). James tells us to count it all joy when we face trials of various kinds, knowing that the testing of our faith produces steadfastness (James 1:2-3). Job is experiencing the reality of this divine testing, but without the benefit of the New Testament explanation. He feels the pressure, but he cannot yet see the glorious purpose. He only knows that the sovereign God has fixed His gaze upon him, and he is buckling under the weight of it.
A Plea for Privacy (v. 19)
Job's desperation leads him to a simple, human plea: leave me alone.
"Will You never turn Your gaze away from me, Nor let me alone until I swallow my spit?" (Job 7:19 LSB)
This is one of the most raw and relatable cries in all of Scripture. The feeling of being constantly watched, measured, and tested is exhausting. Job is asking for just a moment's peace. The phrase "until I swallow my spit" is a Hebrew idiom for a very brief moment, the time it takes to catch one's breath. He is not asking for his old life back in this verse; he is simply asking for a pause in the celestial interrogation. "Just look away for a second, God. Let me have one moment where I don't feel the weight of Your eyes on me."
This is the cry of a creature before the uncreated. Fallen man, in his heart of hearts, wants God to go away. The cry of the wicked to God is, "Depart from us! We do not desire the knowledge of Your ways" (Job 21:14). But Job is not wicked in that sense. He is a righteous man in agony, and his agony is compounded by the very presence of the God he serves. This is a profound spiritual paradox. The very thing that is our only hope, the presence of God, can, in times of intense suffering, feel like an unbearable burden. It is the holiness of God that makes His presence so weighty. To be a sinner standing before a holy God is to feel exposed, and Job, despite his righteousness, knows he is a creature of dust and a sinner besides.
The Accusation of a Target (v. 20)
Feeling cornered, Job's lament turns into a direct confrontation.
"Have I sinned? What have I done to You, O watcher of men? Why have You set me as Your target, So that I am a burden to myself?" (Job 7:20 LSB)
Job asks the question that his friends will soon be hammering him with: "Have I sinned?" But he asks it of God, not of them. It is a half-question, half-challenge. "If I have sinned, what is it to You? How could my sin, the sin of a mere man, warrant this level of divine retribution?" He addresses God as the "watcher of men." The Hebrew here is more like a guard, a warden. It is not a benevolent watchfulness, but a scrutinizing, imprisoning gaze.
Then comes the heart of his complaint: "Why have You set me as Your target?" Job feels singled out. He feels as though God has propped him up in a field and is using him for divine archery practice. The result is that he has become "a burden to myself." His own existence is an intolerable weight. This is the depth of despair, when the suffering is so great that you begin to loathe your own being. The pain is not just external anymore; it has turned inward and become a form of self-hatred.
Here we must be careful. Job is speaking out of his anguish. He is not theologically precise, but he is brutally honest. And God allows this honesty. God is not looking for pious platitudes from a man on an ash heap. He is big enough to handle our rage, our confusion, and our accusations. Job is wrong, God has not made him a target out of malice, but his feeling is real. And in the economy of God's grace, this honest wrestling is a thousand times better than the smug, detached theologizing of his friends.
The Final, Desperate Question (v. 21)
Job concludes with a question that hangs in the air, a question that points toward the only possible solution.
"Why then do You not forgive my transgression And take away my iniquity? For now I will lie down in the dust; And You will seek me earnestly, but I will not be." (Job 7:21 LSB)
This is the pivot. After protesting the intensity of God's scrutiny, Job lands on the central problem of the human condition: sin. "If this is all about some sin I've committed, then why don't You just forgive it?" It is a question born of exasperation, but it is the most important question anyone can ask. If God is holy, and man is sinful, and God insists on paying attention to man, then the only hope for man is forgiveness. There is no other way for the relationship to work.
Job is saying, in effect, "Either leave me alone, or forgive me." He sees no middle ground. And he is right. A holy God cannot simply overlook sin. He cannot pretend it is not there. He must either judge it or forgive it. And forgiveness is not a simple thing. It is not just waving a hand and saying, "Don't worry about it." For God to forgive sin justly, a payment must be made. A substitute must be found. Job, in his agony, is crying out for a gospel he does not yet fully possess. He knows he needs a redeemer (Job 19:25), and here he knows he needs pardon.
His final words in this section are filled with a bleak pathos. He sees only one escape: death. "For now I will lie down in the dust." He feels his end is near. And then a final, haunting turn to God: "You will seek me earnestly, but I will not be." There is a touch of tragic vindication here. "One day, God, You will look for Your target, for the creature You were so obsessed with, and I'll be gone. Then what will You do?" It is the cry of a man who feels that God will miss him when he is gone, even if His attention now is a torment. It is a dim, distorted reflection of the truth that God has indeed set His heart upon man, not for destruction, but for redemption.
The Watcher Who Became the Watched
Job's cry, "O watcher of men," is answered in the most profound way imaginable at the cross. The God who watches men became a man to be watched. The One who examines every heart allowed His own heart to be pierced.
On the cross, Jesus Christ became the target. He was magnified on that hill, lifted up for all to see. God the Father set His heart upon His Son, not to test Him, but to crush Him for our iniquities (Isaiah 53:10). The unblinking gaze of divine justice that Job felt so intensely was focused with infinite, holy wrath upon Jesus Christ. And unlike Job, Jesus could not cry, "Will you never turn your gaze away from me?" Instead, He cried, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46). The Father did turn His gaze away, for that moment, so that He would never have to turn it away from us.
Job asked, "Have I sinned? What have I done to You?" Jesus, the sinless one, was "made to be sin for us" (2 Corinthians 5:21). He became the ultimate burden to Himself, bearing the weight of the sin of the world. He was the target, so that we could be brought into the family.
And Job's final, desperate question, "Why then do You not forgive my transgression And take away my iniquity?" finds its glorious answer in the shed blood of the Lamb. God can and does forgive sin, not by ignoring it, but by punishing it in the person of His Son. He is both "faithful and just to forgive us our sins." It is just because the penalty has been paid in full.
The Christian life is still a life under the watchful eye of God. He still examines us every morning and tests us every moment. But because of Christ, that gaze is no longer the gaze of a warden or an executioner. It is the loving, attentive, and refining gaze of a Father. He watches us not to find fault, but to burn away the dross and to shape us into the image of His Son. He will not leave us alone, not because He is our tormentor, but because He is our Redeemer, and He has sworn to complete the good work He began in us (Philippians 1:6).