(16) В¶ For now thou numberest my steps: dost thou not watch over my sin? (17) My transgression is sealed up in a bag, and thou sewest up mine iniquity. (18) And surely the mountain falling cometh to nought, and the rock is removed out of his place. (19) The waters wear the stones: thou washest away the things which grow out of the dust of the earth; and thou destroyest the hope of man. (20) Thou prevailest forever against him, and he passeth: thou changest his countenance, and sendest him away. (21) His sons come to honour, and he knoweth it not; and they are brought low, but he perceiveth it not of them. (22) But his flesh upon him shall have pain, and his soul within him shall mourn.
Job is here getting again into his old note of complaining. The poor man seems at times, when his whole soul felt warmed with the subject of divine love, to lose both a sight and sense of his own sorrows. But the clouds return after the rain. Probably some new pains of body, and distress of mind, breaking out afresh, like a captive awaking from sleep, whose refreshment, during that state of nature's forgetfulness, had been sweet, finds himself still in prison; so Job, after dwelling upon the LORD'S goodness, falls back again to the feeling of his own misery, and laments it. Alas! what is the sum total of life, but what Job observes, both in the opening and close of this chapter? Without an eye to JESUS, without an interest in JESUS, as an hireling's is his day, and that day a day only of trouble! Oh! how sweet that prayer; So teach us to number our days, as to apply our hearts unto wisdom. Psalms 90:12.