Commentary - Job 10:1-7

Bird's-eye view

In this passage, Job continues his lament, moving from a general despair over his condition to a direct and pointed confrontation with God. This is not the sanitized, quiet piety that many mistake for holiness. This is raw, honest, and frankly, audacious. Job is on the ash heap, scraping his sores with a piece of pottery, and he has decided that decorum is a luxury he can no longer afford. He is going to speak his mind to the Almighty. He lays out a series of rhetorical questions that are dripping with bitter irony, challenging God's justice and goodness. He essentially puts God on trial, demanding to know the charges against him. This is a man pushed to the absolute limit, and in his extremity, he is wrestling with God in a way that is both profoundly uncomfortable and deeply instructive for us. He is not cursing God, as Satan predicted he would, but he is certainly not making it easy on Him either.

The core of Job’s complaint is the apparent disconnect between what he knows of God’s character, His omniscience and justice, and what he is experiencing in his own body and life. He knows he is not wicked in the way his friends assume, yet he is being treated as though he were the chief of sinners. This leads him to question God's very nature. Does God see as man sees? Is He limited by time and perspective? Does He derive some sort of satisfaction from oppressing the work of His own hands? These are not the questions of a detached theologian; they are the cries of a man in the furnace. And in all this, we see a crucial truth: the life of faith is not the absence of questions, but the honest engagement with God, even when those questions are laced with agony.

Outline

Context In Job

This chapter is a continuation of Job's response to his friend Bildad's second speech. Bildad has just finished painting a grim picture of the fate of the wicked, implying quite strongly that Job fits the description. Job, however, refuses to accept this simplistic, tit-for-tat prosperity theology. He knows it doesn't fit the facts of his case. In chapter 9, he wrestled with the sheer power and inscrutability of God, concluding that a mere man cannot hope to win a legal dispute with the Almighty. Now, in chapter 10, his tone shifts from one of awe at God's power to one of anguish at God's apparent injustice. He moves from the courtroom of abstract theology to the raw, personal cry of a suffering soul. He is no longer just debating his friends; he is taking his case directly to the Judge, however hopeless that might seem.

Key Issues

Verse by Verse Commentary

1 “My soul is loathed by my life; I will abandon all restraint in myself to my complaint; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.

Job begins with a statement of utter weariness. The Hebrew is visceral; he is disgusted with his own life. This is not a passing blue mood. This is a deep, soul-level revulsion at his continued existence in such misery. Because of this, he makes a decision. He is going to "let loose" his complaint. The floodgates are opening. Up to this point, he has maintained a measure of restraint, but no longer. He is going to speak from "the bitterness of his soul." This is a key to understanding the psalms of lament and passages like this one. The Bible does not require us to pretend that bitter things are sweet. When your soul is bitter, the godly response is not to pretend it isn't, but to take that bitterness and speak it to God. Job is not venting into the void; his complaint has a target, as the next verse makes clear.

2 I will say to God, ‘Do not account me as wicked; Let me know why You contend with me.

And here is the address on the letter. He speaks directly to God. His first plea is, "Do not condemn me." He is being treated like a wicked man, and he asks God not to formalize the verdict that the circumstances are screaming. But the second part is the heart of the matter: "Show me why you contend with me." This is the cry for meaning. Job is not simply asking for relief from the pain; he is asking for the reason behind the pain. This is a profoundly human and, I would argue, a profoundly righteous request. He is not demanding that the trial cease, but that he be told the charges. If there is a controversy between him and God, he wants to know what it is. This is not the language of rebellion, but of a relationship, albeit a strained one. He still believes there is a "why," and that God is the one who knows it.

3 Is it good to You that You oppress, That You reject the labor of Your hands, And cause the counsel of the wicked to shine forth?

Job now launches into a series of searing rhetorical questions. He challenges God's character. "Does this bring you pleasure?" he asks. Does it seem right to you, God, to crush a man, especially a man who is the work of your own hands? Job understands himself to be God's creation, and he uses that fact as leverage in his argument. It is like a potter taking pleasure in smashing his own finest work. It seems senseless. And to make it worse, while Job, the righteous man, is being crushed, "the counsel of the wicked" appears to prosper. God seems to be smiling on their plans. Job is pointing out the moral chaos of his situation. The world, as he is experiencing it, is upside down. The righteous suffer and the wicked thrive, and Job dares to ask God if He is pleased with this arrangement.

4 Have You eyes of flesh? Or do You see as a mortal man sees?

The questions become even more pointed. Job is accusing God of acting like a limited, fallible human being. "Have you eyes of flesh?" In other words, is your perception flawed? Are you looking at the surface of things, as men do, and misjudging my character? This is a bold charge. Job knows the catechism answer is "no." Of course God does not have fleshly eyes. But Job's experience is so contrary to what he knows of God's omniscience that he is driven to ask. He is essentially saying, "Your actions, God, do not align with your attributes. You are acting like a shortsighted man, not like the all-seeing God."

5 Are Your days as the days of a mortal man, Or Your years as man’s years,

He continues this line of argument, moving from God's perception to His lifespan. Are you, like a man, running out of time? Is that why you are in such a hurry to find fault with me? Human beings are impatient because their time is short. We have to rush to judgment. But God is eternal. He has all the time in the world. Job's point is that God's actions seem frantic, like someone who needs to find a reason for punishment before it's too late.

6 That You should seek for my guilt And search after my sin?

This verse flows directly from the last. "Because you are short on time," Job implies, "you are hunting for my iniquity and searching for my sin." The image is of a prosecutor desperately trying to find some piece of evidence, any piece, to make his case. God is depicted as rummaging through Job's life, looking for a pretext to punish him. This is a shocking reversal of the true state of affairs. God is the one who knows all things, and needs to search for nothing. But Job's suffering makes it feel as though God is on a relentless, almost desperate, witch hunt.

7 According to Your knowledge I am indeed not wicked, Yet there is no deliverer from Your hand.

Here is the crux of the whole lament. Job brings it all together in a statement of agonizing paradox. "You know that I am not guilty." He appeals directly to God's own perfect knowledge. This is not Job's self-assessment against God's; it is Job's appeal to what he believes God Himself knows to be true. And yet, despite this fact, "there is no one who can deliver from your hand." This is the collision of two unshakeable realities for Job: his own integrity (which he believes God knows) and God's sovereign power (from which there is no escape). God knows he is innocent, yet God is treating him as guilty, and there is absolutely nothing anyone can do about it. This is the heart of his torment. He is trapped in the hands of an omnipotent God who appears to be acting against His own omniscience.