Job 7--Job Continues: My Life Has No Hope

Job Continues: My Life Has No Hope
7 “Has not man a hard service on earth,
    and are not his days like the days of a hired hand?
2 Like a slave who longs for the shadow,
    and like a hired hand who looks for his wages,
3 so I am allotted months of emptiness,
    and nights of misery are apportioned to me.
4 When I lie down I say, ‘When shall I arise?’
    But the night is long,
    and I am full of tossing till the dawn.
5 My flesh is clothed with worms and dirt;
    my skin hardens, then breaks out afresh.
6 My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle
    and come to their end without hope.

7 “Remember that my life is a breath;
    my eye will never again see good.
8 The eye of him who sees me will behold me no more;
    while your eyes are on me, I shall be gone.
9 As the cloud fades and vanishes,
    so he who goes down to Sheol does not come up;
10 he returns no more to his house,
    nor does his place know him anymore.

​11 “Therefore I will not restrain my mouth;
    I will speak in the anguish of my spirit;
    I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.
12 Am I the sea, or a sea monster,
    that you set a guard over me?
13 When I say, ‘My bed will comfort me,
    my couch will ease my complaint,’
14 then you scare me with dreams
    and terrify me with visions,
15 so that I would choose strangling
    and death rather than my bones.
16 I loathe my life; I would not live forever.
    Leave me alone, for my days are a breath.
17 What is man, that you make so much of him,
    and that you set your heart on him,
18 visit him every morning
    and test him every moment?
19 How long will you not look away from me,
    nor leave me alone till I swallow my spit?
20 If I sin, what do I do to you, you watcher of mankind?
    Why have you made me your mark?
    Why have I become a burden to you?
21 Why do you not pardon my transgression
    and take away my iniquity?
For now I shall lie in the earth;
    you will seek me, but I shall not be.”

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We really start to see the depths of despair that Job is in now when he continues his passionate plea to both his friends and to God.  It sounds like we are reading from the book of Ecclesiastics again--a man of many years who looks back and all he seems to have to say about life is that it's long, hard, and empty of meaning without God.

I played this song for my small group recently and think that it fits here well with Job's outpouring of his spirit (especially the second verse)

All Job looks forward to in the little time that he has left on earth is some peace, quiet and comfort, and no one is gong to stop him form speaking his mind?  Sound like anyone you know who knows the end is near for them?

Apparently they were concerned for Job and had him on suicide watch as Job asks if he is some kind of sea monster that they have set a guard over him.  He then takes a swipe at Eliphaz and asks him what kind of comfort telling Job about his nightmares that gave him goosebumps was supposed to bring Job?  Was Eliphaz trying to get Job to want to kill himself?  That's all that Job can imagine.

Job then turns his attention once more back to God and asks God if man is so insignificant then why would He expend so much effort on Job and what does he (Job) have to do to make God to stop testing him every moment of every day?  Surely God has more important things to pay attention to, right?

Job wonders if he has sinned why God is making such an example out of him, a "mark," and why Job has become such a burden to God and what he must do in order for God to pardon his transgression and take away his iniquity.  This is not the language simply of atonement which we know Job understood with him making sacrifices and burnt offerings for his sons and daughters at the beginning of the book of Job, no, this is the language of a better sacrifice that we don't see until the New Testament--this is penal substitutionary atonement, this is the language of redemption and this is the gospel.  In all of Job's misery he realizes there is no sacrifice he can make to make God's wrath turn away from him because he is guilty in the eyes of God--all he can do is cry out for grace and mercy and ask God to provide a way for his sins to be pardoned and taken away.  But God is just and he cannot let sin go unpunished, so how can God be both just in punishing the sin and full of grace and mercy where he can pardon, forgive, and take away our sin?  The answer is none other than the penal substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ where Christ became sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of Christ.

Did Job really know what he was asking for?  Maybe, maybe not, but it is interesting that over and over again he cries out for the work and the person that we know will be our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  He asks for a mediator between God and man.  He asks for a Redeemer, and here he asks for God to issue a pardon and to be gracious and merciful and take away his sins--not just cover over them like we see in the Law of the Old Testament (though we aren't even there yet).  Oh how much the patriarchs seemed to understand that we don't!  Job seemed to understand that that as a sinner he deserved every bit of wrath that God would pour out on him, but all he could do was to ask God to turn away and not look upon his sin, but even better than that would be for God to find a way to justly deal with his sin in a way where God could pardon and forgive him.  What faith!  The only thing that could lead Job to such a conclusion would be understanding the nature and character of God--the same God that made a way for you and me through the one and only Way--Jesus Christ.