(1) В¶ Is there not an appointed time to man upon earth? are not his days also like the days of an hireling? (2) As a servant earnestly desireth the shadow, and as an hireling looketh for the reward of his work: (3) So am I made to possess months of vanity, and wearisome nights are appointed to me. (4) When I lie down, I say, When shall I arise, and the night be gone? and I am full of tossings to and fro unto the dawning of the day. (5) My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust; my skin is broken, and become loathsome. (6) My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, and are spent without hope.
This seems to be an address from Job to his friends. He compares human life under several very striking similitudes, and therefrom wishes to point out, that as a poor labouring man in any station, looks forward to the evening of the day with a kind of joy, that he shall then have rest; so he might be excused wishing for the grave, to put an end, not only to his labours, but his sorrows, and peculiar sufferings, by reason of his loathsome disease. Reader! it will abundantly more tend to our relief, under sorrow of any kind, to bring our case before the throne, and wait the LORD'S time for deliverance, than presumptuously to prescribe when the hour shall be. A child of GOD is more afraid, that he should come out of the furnace unpurged, and the LORD'S end in putting him there not answered, than that he should be there too long. And hence, you may put this down as a sure maxim; until we see GOD'S wisdom, and GOD'S love in our afflictions, we never shall be reconciled to them as we ought. But when a believer in the furnace can and doth say, My GOD my Saviour is exercising me, I know all is right; I know all shall be well; oh! how sanctified then is that sorrow!