Job 10:1-22 - Arthur Peake's Commentary on the Bible

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Bible Comments

Job's tone becomes sharper. He accuses God of having created him only to torment him. What profit is there to God in destroying the work that has cost Him so much pains? (Job 10:3)? Is God short-sighted, so that He sees faults where they do not exist (Job 10:4)? How can He be, when He is eternal (Job 10:5)? Yet He inquires after Job's sin, torturing to make him confess (Job 10:6 f.). Job reminds God how He has made him (Job 10:10 f. describes according to the poet's physiology the formation of the embryo; cf. Psalms 139:13). God had given him life and preserved him (Job 10:12); yet all the while secretly purposing to torture him. This is Job's darkest thought concerning God (compare the thoughts of Caliban upon Setebos in Browning's poem): God appears as the Great Inquisitor (Job 10:14 f.) : contrast Psalms 130:3 f. Job, marvellously made, is marvellously treated (Job 10:16). God renews His witnesses against Him, i.e. sends ever fresh and fresh pains to accuse him of sin. Host after host is against him (Job 10:17). Again as in Job 10:3, Job asks why he was born (Job 10:18 f.). Since, however, God has not spared him the tragedy of life, let Him grant that at least his last few days may be painless, before he departs into the deep gloom of Sheol (Job 10:20-22).

Job 10:3. Probably the last clause should be struck out (Duhm, Peake). It does not harmonise with the context.

Job 10:15. Peake would read with slight emendation sated with shame and drunken with sorrow.

Job 10:16. The first line is difficult and the meaning is somewhat uncertain.

Related Commentaries of Job 10:1

Job 10:1-22

1 My soul is wearya of my life; I will leave my complaint upon myself; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.

2 I will say unto God, Do not condemn me; shew me wherefore thou contendest with me.

3 Is it good unto thee that thou shouldest oppress, that thou shouldest despise the workb of thine hands, and shine upon the counsel of the wicked?

4 Hast thou eyes of flesh? or seest thou as man seeth?

5 Are thy days as the days of man? are thy years as man's days,

6 That thou enquirest after mine iniquity, and searchest after my sin?

7 Thou knowest that I am not wicked; and there is none that can deliver out of thine hand.

8 Thine hands have made me and fashioned me together round about; yet thou dost destroy me.

9 Remember, I beseech thee, that thou hast made me as the clay; and wilt thou bring me into dust again?

10 Hast thou not poured me out as milk, and curdled me like cheese?

11 Thou hast clothed me with skin and flesh, and hast fencedc me with bones and sinews.

12 Thou hast granted me life and favour, and thy visitation hath preserved my spirit.

13 And these things hast thou hid in thine heart: I know that this is with thee.

14 If I sin, then thou markest me, and thou wilt not acquit me from mine iniquity.

15 If I be wicked, woe unto me; and if I be righteous, yet will I not lift up my head. I am full of confusion; therefore see thou mine affliction;

16 For it increaseth. Thou huntest me as a fierce lion: and again thou shewest thyself marvellous upon me.

17 Thou renewest thy witnessesd against me, and increasest thine indignation upon me; changes and war are against me.

18 Wherefore then hast thou brought me forth out of the womb? Oh that I had given up the ghost, and no eye had seen me!

19 I should have been as though I had not been; I should have been carried from the womb to the grave.

20 Are not my days few? cease then, and let me alone, that I may take comfort a little,

21 Before I go whence I shall not return, even to the land of darkness and the shadow of death;

22 A land of darkness, as darkness itself; and of the shadow of death, without any order, and where the light is as darkness.