Job 7

Job answers Eliphaz by turning from his friends to speak to God. He describes life as hard labor, his nights as sleepless torment, and his days as fleeting. Then he pours out a raw complaint, asking why God watches him so closely and will not forgive or leave him alone.

Job 7:1-2

Job sees human life as hard service. Like a soldier on campaign or a day laborer, a person endures the heat and longs for evening shade and payday. Job’s own days feel like toil with no reward in sight.

BSA: labor (“like a soldier in a warfare, as in a campaign”): Life is pictured as a long military duty that a person cannot leave. hired hand (“a servant working for payment, a hireling”): A hired worker at least has wages to look forward to, which Job lacks.

Hebrew: צָבָא (tsava, H6635) — “hard service, warfare, campaign.” The Hebrew word often means an army or military service. Job pictures life as a hard tour of duty that he did not choose.

Job 7:3-4

Instead of rest, Job has months of emptiness and nights of misery. He lies down and wonders when morning will come. The night stretches on, and he tosses until first light. Sleeplessness is a suffering many readers know.

BSA: futility (“vanity, emptiness, uselessness”): His months feel hollow, as if they produce nothing. toss (“am filled with tossings”): He is full of restless turning and cannot find peace.

Job 7:5

Job describes his body honestly. His sores are crawling with maggots, crusted with dried dirt, and splitting open and oozing. This is the disease that struck him in chapter 2. He hides nothing from God.

BSA: worms (“maggots”): The word names the grubs that gather in open sores, a vivid sign of decay while still alive.

See also: Job 2:7-8.

Job 7:6

His days race by faster than the shuttle flashing back and forth across a loom. They end with no hope. Weaving also gives a second picture: the thread runs out. Job feels his life is being used up without any purpose.

BSA: hope (“a cord that attaches”): The Hebrew word for hope can also mean a cord or thread, so the weaving picture fits. His thread is running out.

Hebrew: תִּקְוָה (tiqwah, H8615) — “hope, expectation; also a cord.” The same word means hope and a cord. Job plays on the loom image: his thread of life is spent, and his hope ends with it.

Job 7:7-8

Now Job speaks directly to God. He asks God to remember that life is only a breath. He believes he will not see good again. Soon no human eye will find him, and even God will look for him and find nothing.

BSA: breath (“wind, spirit”): Life is as light and brief as a puff of wind.

See also: Psalm 103:15-16; James 4:14.

Job 7:9-10

Job compares death to a cloud that thins and vanishes. A person goes down to the grave and does not come back to his house. His old neighborhood forgets him. Job speaks here as one in despair, not as one who has seen the resurrection.

BSA: Sheol (“the grave, the underworld”): Sheol is the shadowy place of the dead, which Job sees as a place of no return.

See also: Job 14:14; Job 19:25-27.

Job 7:11

Since there is so little time, Job will not stay silent. He will speak out of his distress and bitterness. He does not offer a polished prayer. He brings his pain honestly to God, and the Bible records it.

BSA: complain (“muse, lament”): The word carries the sense of pouring out one’s thoughts aloud in a lament.

See also: Psalm 142:1-2.

Job 7:12

Job asks if he is a raging sea or a sea monster that must be held in check. In the ancient world such creatures stood for chaos and danger. He feels God is guarding him like a threat when he is only a weak, suffering man.

BSA: monster (“a sea-serpent, dragon”): This names a dreaded creature of the deep, a symbol of wild power.

Hebrew: תַּנִּין (tannin, H8577) — “sea monster, dragon.” The word names a great creature of the waters. Job is saying he is no such monster and does not deserve to be so tightly restrained.

See also: Job 38:8-11.

Job 7:13-15

Job hopes his bed will bring relief, but even sleep turns into dread through terrifying dreams. He feels God is the one frightening him. He would rather be strangled and die than go on living in this body.

BSA: frighten (“scare, affright”): Job feels that God himself is startling him in the night. strangling (“choking, a mode of death”): He is so worn out that even a violent death seems better than his suffering.

Job 7:16

Job says he loathes his life and does not want to live forever in such misery. He asks God to leave him alone, since his days are a mere breath. It is the cry of a worn-out man, not a calm judgment.

BSA: breath (“vanity, emptiness”): The Hebrew word suggests a vapor, something that is gone almost before it is noticed.

Hebrew: הֶבֶל (hevel, H1892) — “breath, vapor, vanity.” This is the same word that Ecclesiastes repeats again and again. It pictures something that vanishes like steam.

Job 7:17-18

Job twists the words of praise in Psalm 8. There people marvel that God cares for them. Here Job asks why God makes so much of man only to inspect and test him all the time. The same attention that could be a comfort feels like a heavy burden.

BSA: attend (“visit, oversee, or inspect”): God’s visits feel like constant inspections instead of kindness. test (“examine, test, or try”): Job feels he is being tried like metal in a furnace, every moment.

See also: Psalm 8:4; Psalm 144:3.

Job 7:19

Job asks how long God will keep gazing at him. He wants only a moment to swallow his spit, which is a way of asking for a short breather. He is begging for a pause in the pain.

BSA: look away (“cease to gaze at me”): Job asks God to turn His watching eyes elsewhere even briefly.

Job 7:20

Job allows for the sake of argument that he may have sinned. Even so, how could that harm God? He calls God the watcher of mankind and asks why he has been made a target and a weight. Job does not claim to be sinless.

BSA: target (“mark, object of attack”): Job feels he is the thing God aims at, like a target for arrows. burden (“load, weight”): He feels weighed down himself, and wonders if he has become a weariness to God as well.

See also: Job 16:12.

Job 7:21

Job asks why God does not simply forgive him, if he has sinned. Time is short, for he will soon lie in the dust. God will search for him then and find him gone. Job’s complaint ends with an appeal to God’s mercy.

BSA: pardon (“forgive, take away”): He asks for his sin to be lifted off and carried away. iniquity (“moral evil, guilt”): The word points to guilt that twists and weighs on a person.

See also: Psalm 103:12.