October 1
Reading: Job 10
1 “I loathe my life;
I will give free utterance to my complaint;
I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.
2 I will say to God, Do not condemn me;
let me know why you contend against me.
3 Does it seem good to you to oppress,
to despise the work of your hands
and favor the designs of the wicked?
4 Have you eyes of flesh?
Do you see as man sees?
5 Are your days as the days of man,
or your years as a man’s years,
6 that you seek out my iniquity
and search for my sin,
7 although you know that I am not guilty,
and there is none to deliver out of your hand?
8 “Your hands fashioned and made me,
and now you have destroyed me altogether.
9 Remember that you have made me like clay;
and will you return me to the dust?
10 Did you not pour me out like milk
and curdle me like cheese?
11 You clothed me with skin and flesh,
and knit me together with bones and sinews.
12 You have granted me life and steadfast love,
and your care has preserved my spirit.
13 Yet these things you hid in your heart;
I know that this was your purpose.
14 If I sin, you watch me
and do not acquit me of my iniquity.
15 If I am guilty, woe to me!
If I am in the right, I cannot lift up my head,
for I am filled with disgrace and look on my affliction.
16 And were my head lifted up, you would hunt me like a lion
and again work wonders against me.
17 You renew your witnesses against me
and increase your vexation toward me;
you bring fresh troops against me.
18 “Why did you bring me out from the womb?
Would that I had died before any eye had seen me
19 and were as though I had not been,
carried from the womb to the grave.
20 Are not my days few?
Then cease, and leave me alone, that I may find a little cheer
21 before I go– and I shall not return—
to the land of darkness and deep shadow,
22 the land of gloom like thick darkness,
like deep shadow without any order,
where light is as thick darkness.”
In the previous chapter we saw, in his response to Bildad, the nature of Job’s complaint to God. Job had four challenges to God’s justice. It has taken Job eight chapters to finally get it articulated. Now, in chapter 10, Job sinks back down into lament again. This is what grief and sorrow are like. You lament, you pray, you try to figure out what you want, you finally say it, then you go back to lament. Grief comes in waves and misery in cycles.
The chapter begins, “My soul loathes my life.”
In chapter 10 Job is no longer speaking about God, but to God. He raises four questions to God about God. Remember that Job’s problem is not chiefly the problem of evil, but the problem of God. You might think that these are not the sort of questions that a person should ask of God. But Job is being honest with where he is and what he’s struggling with. He is not trying to dress it up in nice, acceptable, spiritual language.
First question: Why do You hate me? (vss. 1-3) Is it good for God to reject His own creation? Have you ever felt like God hates you? Job does. We know that he is wrong, but this is how he feels.
Second question: Why do you watch me? (vss. 4-7) Job knows that God watches everything and everyone, but he now feels as though God does so only to discover sin. What good does it do God to watch me only to seek out my guilt and condemn me?
Third question: Why did You make me? (vss. 8-17) Job’s question here could be summarized as follows, “God, You made me, You cared for me, but for what purpose? Only to discover my sin and destroy me?” In verses 13-17 Job shows that he understands the seriousness of sin, that God does not let sin go unpunished.
Fourth question: Why don’t you kill me? (vss. 18-22) Here he gets back to the first verse and laments made twice before, “Why then was I even born? Could You just leave me alone to die?”
The questions could be put together as follows, and this is our question as well, “God, You are perfect and know everything and have all power. You do not let sin go unpunished. We know this. Then why do you bring people into this world only to crush them and destroy them for their sin? Are You really like this? If so, why?”
Job is looking at God and His creation and does not understand. Or, rather, he understands that there must be a piece missing, something that he cannot see, in the way that God works.