I loathe [it]; I would not live alway: let me alone; for my days [are] vanity.
Ver. 16. I loathe it, I would not live alway] I loathe or abhor it, that is, my life, or I loathe them, that is, my bones, Job 7:15. "I would not live alway," that is, long in this world, and in this condition. Plotinus, the philosopher, held it a special mercy of God to men that they were mortal; and did not always live to labour under the miseries of this wretched life (Aug. de Civitate Dei, l. ix. c. 10). Cato professed, that if he might have his age renewed as the eagle's, so that he might be made young again, he would seriously refuse it (Cic. Cato Major). How much better might Job say thus, since the righteous hath hope in his death; and might well take up that of the poet,
Utque adeone mori miserum est?
The days of the best are so full of evil both of sin and pain, that it is good they are not fuller of days; if they should have length of life added to heaps of sorrows, and perpetuity with all their misery, how miserable were they! Christ promiseth it as a point of favour of his, that the days of trouble should be shortened, Matthew 24:22, and that he may put an end to the age, he dispatched away the generations with all the convenient speed that may be.
Therefore let me alone] Some read thus, I cannot live for ever, or very long, therefore let me alone, that is, stop afflicting me, and let me go quietly to my grave, Psalms 39:13. Here one well observeth that the world and time, while they continue, are always ceasing; and therefore have their denomination from this word, which signifieth to cease, Quod cito cessat et deficit (Mercer in Pagnin.).
For my days are vanity] Hebel, a puff of wind, or a bubble on the water. Man's body is a bubble, his soul the wind that filleth it. The bubble riseth higher and higher, till at last it breaketh; so doth the body rise from infancy to youth, from youth to age, &c., till at length it cracketh and dissolveth. The life of a man is a vain life. This Job often beats upon, and why, see the note. See Trapp on " Job 7:7 "