Job 10

Job answers Bildad by turning from his friends to speak straight to God. He pours out his bitterness, asks why God is contending with him, and remembers how tenderly God made him. He ends wishing he had never been born and longing for a little rest before death.

Job 10:1

Job is worn out with suffering and decides not to hold back. He will speak honestly to God from the bitterness of his soul. The Bible allows such raw prayer; Job brings his pain to God rather than hiding it.

BSA: loathe (“am weary of, have a strong dislike for”): Job is not only sad but exhausted by living, as if life has become a burden he cannot carry. complaint (“sad thoughts, bitter feelings”): His complaint is a deep inner sorrow he is finally letting out.

See also: Psalm 142:2.

Job 10:2

Job’s plea is simple: do not simply pronounce me guilty, but tell me what the charge is. He feels that God is treating him like a defendant in court, and he wants to know the reason.

BSA: prosecute (“contend with me, strive against me”): Job feels God is struggling against him like an opponent in a legal dispute.

Job 10:3

Job asks a painful question. Does it bring God any satisfaction to crush a person He Himself made, while the wicked seem to prosper? Job does not understand, and he says so plainly.

BSA: oppress (“cruelly afflict or tyrannize”): Job feels God is acting like a harsh ruler toward him. favor (“shine upon or smile on”): He pictures God smiling on the wicked while frowning on him.

See also: Job 21:7.

Job 10:4-5

Job asks whether God sees as limited humans do, with weak eyes, quick judgments and short lives. The answer he implies is no. God is not hurried or mistaken the way people are, so why would He treat Job as if He were?

BSA: mortal (“human, enosh”): The word stresses human frailty and weakness, which God does not share.

See also: 1 Samuel 16:7.

Job 10:6-7

Job protests that God hunts for some hidden sin, though He knows Job is not guilty. Job does not claim to be sinless. He claims he is not the wicked man his suffering seems to imply. No one can escape God’s hand, so he feels trapped.

BSA: deliverance (“rescue, salvation”): Job sees nobody who could rescue him from God’s power except God Himself.

See also: Job 1:8.

Job 10:8

Job reminds God that His own hands made him, with care and in every part. It seems senseless to Job that the Maker would now turn and tear down His own work.

BSA: shaped (“shaped with care, formed with purpose”): Job’s body was made deliberately and carefully, not carelessly.

See also: Psalm 139:13-14.

Job 10:9

Job uses the picture of a potter and clay. He asks God to remember that He made him from earth, and he fears being sent back to dust. It echoes the first man’s creation and the sentence of death.

BSA: remember (“to recall, to mark”): Job appeals to God to keep his making in mind, as a basis for mercy.

See also: Genesis 2:7; Genesis 3:19.

Job 10:10-11

Job describes his formation in the womb in simple, homely pictures: like milk poured out and curdled into cheese, then covered with skin and flesh and held together by bones and sinews. It is a quiet marvel of God’s craftsmanship.

BSA: knit (“wove, fenced”): The body is pictured as woven or fenced together with great skill.

See also: Psalm 139:13.

Job 10:12

Job remembers God’s good gifts: life itself, steadfast kindness, and constant watchful care that kept him alive. Even in his bitterness he cannot deny that God has been good to him.

BSA: loving devotion (“kindness, mercy”): God’s kindness to Job was faithful love, not mere duty. care (“visitiation, oversight”): God personally looked after him, like a keeper watching over what is precious.

Hebrew: חֶסֶד (chesed, H2617) — “steadfast, loyal love.” This is the Old Testament word for covenant love that stays faithful. Job knows God has shown it to him, which makes his present suffering so puzzling.

Job 10:13-14

Job fears that behind God’s earlier kindness was a hidden purpose: to watch for his slightest sin and never let it go. This is Job’s fear and suspicion, not the truth about God, as the end of the book shows.

BSA: concealed (“hid from view”): Job feels that God kept something secret from him all along. acquit (“clear, make clean”): He fears that God would never declare him clean, whatever he did.

See also: Job 42:7.

Job 10:15

Job feels stuck either way. If he is guilty, he is doomed. If he is righteous, he still cannot stand tall, because he is so overwhelmed with shame and suffering. His affliction crushes him whether or not he is to blame.

BSA: lift (“raise, exalt”): Lifting the head is a sign of confidence, which Job cannot muster. shame (“dishonor, ignominy”): He is filled with public disgrace from his loss and suffering.

Job 10:16-17

Job pictures God as a lion stalking him and as a commander sending fresh waves of troops. Each time he lifts his head, a new blow comes. He speaks from exhaustion, and these are his feelings of how God treats him.

BSA: witnesses (“testifiers, accusers”): Job sees his illness and troubles as fresh evidence being brought against him. wave (“army, campaign”): The word suggests a military assault, one fresh force after another.

See also: Lamentations 3:10.

Job 10:18-19

Job returns to the wish he voiced in chapter 3. He wishes he had died at birth and gone straight from womb to grave, never having seen sorrow. This is the cry of a man in agony, not a calm judgment.

BSA: womb (“place of fetal development, matrix”): Job thinks back to his very beginning as the point where suffering could have been avoided.

See also: Job 3:11; Jeremiah 20:18.

Job 10:20

Job pleads that his days are few. He asks God to look away and leave him alone, so he might have a little cheer before he dies. It is a modest request, not for riches or health, but just for a breath of relief.

BSA: comfort (“cheerfulness, relief, solace”): Job longs for a small measure of gladness, just a little brightness.

See also: Psalm 39:13.

Job 10:21-22

Job describes death as a land of darkness, shadow and disorder, where even light is like darkness. This is how people in his day saw the grave, with little light yet on life after death. Job’s grief shows how much the hope of resurrection later came to mean.

BSA: gloom (“shadow of death, deep distress”): The word suggests a darkness so deep that it feels like death itself. disorder (“without any order, a state of confusion”): The place of the dead is pictured as the opposite of God’s ordered creation.

Hebrew: צַלְמָוֶת (tsalmavet, H6757) — “deep shadow, shadow of death.” This Hebrew word is the same one found in Psalm 23:4, ’the valley of the shadow of death’. It pictures the deepest darkness a person can face.

See also: Psalm 23:4; 1 Corinthians 15:55.