Oh that I might have my request; and that God would grant [me] the thing that I long for!
Ver. 8. Oh that I might have my request!] How heartily begs Job for death, as a medicine of all his maladies and miseries; as that which would bring him malorum ademptionem, bonorum adeptionem, freedom from all evil, fruition of all good; by the force of his faith he looks upon death as the best physician, that would cure him of all infirmities inward and outward, and of all at once, and for ever. Job might likely be of the same mind that Chaucer was, who took for his English motto, Farewell, medicine; and for his Latin one, Mors aerumnarum requies, death will be a sweet rest from all my labours. The same to a believer death is that Mount Ararat was to Noah, where his ark rested after long tossing; or as Michal was to David, a means to shift him out of the way when Saul sent to slay him; or as the fall of the house was to Samson, an end of all his sorrows and sufferings. Hence it is that he rejoiceth under hope, and with stretched out neck looks and longs for death's coming, as dearly as ever Sisera's mother did out of a window for the coming of her son laden with spoils from the battle. As when death is come indeed, he welcometh it, as Jael did the same Sisera (but much more heartily), with, "Turn in, my lord, turn in to me," Judges 4:18; and further bespeaketh it, as Jacob did his brother Esau, at their interview, Surely I have seen thy face as the face of God, who hath made thee to meet me with kisses instead of frowns, and hath sent thee to guard me safe home to my father's house.
And that God would grant me the thing that I long for] Or, have long looked for. Heb. My hope or my expectation, as that which will put a period to my miseries, and possess me of heaven's happiness, as that which will be a postern to let out temporal life, but a street door to let in eternal.