Job complains of the misery of his life and destiny. How is it that Job does not go on to maintain his innocence? Instead of this he proceeds to show how dreadfully he suffers, and to accuse God of cruelty (Job 7:11 f.). The point is that he cannot think of his suffering without viewing it as a ground against God. The ideas of Eliphaz about suffering being due to sin make no impression on him: moreover he feels that, if he had sinned, that would give God no reason to treat him as He does. Again Job can hardly believe as yet that Eliphaz really meant to accuse him of sin. He indulges himself, therefore, freely again in the complaint of his misery. As before, however, in Job 3:20, he is led to think of his own case as one among many (Job 7:1 f.). Life is a soldier's campaign, hard drudgery, wounds, and exposure, till the campaign is over. It is a hireling's day. Working through the sultry midday he thirsts for the coolness of evening and his wages (Job 7:2). Such is man's life in general. But with 3 Job comes back to his own case. His troubles too are laid on him, like the soldier's or the labourer's, by the will of another. Like them he longs for the end of his misery. In Job 7:4 f. he paints a graphic picture of this. He especially dwells on the long interminable nights of pain. His sores breed worms. They form a hard crust (clods of dust) and then break out afresh and run. In spite of his long nights of pain, yet his time goes by more swiftly than a weaver's shuttle (cf. Job 9:25 f.), and he is utterly hopeless (Job 7:6). With Job 7:7 he turns to God and pitifully appeals to Him. For a moment he thinks of God as the God who has loved and cared for him, and is carried on to the further thought (Job 7:8) that when he is gone God will look for him and not find him. It is the first indication of the path upon which ultimately he is to find the personal solution of his trouble. By slow degrees he comes to believe that God who had once cared for him must need him, and therefore ultimately must deliver him. But at present all he says is that God will one day look for him and fail to find him. There is just the faintest suggestion that God will miss him. It is the first gleam of light in the midst of Job's darkness. But it vanishes, and in Job 7:9 f. he dwells on the impossibility of a return from Sheol. The Babylonians called the underworld - the land of no return-' (Peake). According to the ancient Hebrew view, the dead in Sheol were cut off from all communion with God (Psalms 6:5; Psalms 88:10-12; Isaiah 38:18). Here, says Duhm, Job completely rejects the idea of immortality. Of course this is not to say, that it cannot reoccur. On the contrary, just because Job again and again comes back to the comfortless idea, that all is over with death, the observant reader is led to form the suspicion that he is suppressing a hope, which continually reawakens in secret within him, that after all things may be otherwise.
Job 7:1-10
1 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 nighta 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.
7 O remember that my life is wind: mine eye shall no more see good.
8 The eye of him that hath seen me shall see me no more: thine eyes are upon me, and I am not.
9 As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away: so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more.
10 He shall return no more to his house, neither shall his place know him any more.