Job 10:8

Thine hands have made me, and fashioned together round about,.... This and what follow are an illustration of and an enlargement upon, the work of God's hands, made mention of in Job 10:3; and

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

Together round about, i.e. all of me; all the faculties of my soul, and all the parts of my body, which are now overspread with sores and ulcers; I am wholly thy creature and workmanship, made by thee and for thee. Thou dost destroy me, or swallow me up, to wit, without cause, or any eminent provocation of mine; as if thou didst delight in doing and undoing, in making and then destroying thy creatures; which doth not become thy wisdom or goodness.

Job 10:8 Thine hands have made me and fashioned me together round about; yet thou dost destroy me.Ver. 8. Thine hands have made me] Or, throughly and accurately wrought me, as it were, with much pains and labour; thou hast exactly fashioned all my members: not that God either hath hands, or putteth himself to pains; for he doth his work without either tool or toil, Isaiah 40:28. But this is attributed to him after the manner of men, to show the curious workmanship showed in man’ s creation, the masterpiece of all his works of wonder. This David sweetly singeth of, Psalms 139:1-24, and Galen admireth in that excellent book of his, De usu partium humani corporis, setting forth the praises of that God whom he knew not, and singing a hymn unto him. Man, saith one, is cura divini ingenii, he is God’ s escutcheon, wherein he hath portrayed all the titles of the most excellent beauties of the world. The sun, moon, and stars are but the works of God’ s fingers, Psalms 8:3, but man is the work of his hands, Psalms 139:14. He is the most beautiful building of a most wise architect, saith Euripides; the bold attempt of daring nature, saith another heathen; the greatest of all miracles, saith a third. David, speaking of him, and of God’ s goodness to him, begins to wonder before he speaketh, and stops speaking, but not to wonder, Psalms 8:1; Psalms 8:9. And fashioned me together round about] A metaphor from potters, who make their work by turning it around till it be all finished, Jeremiah 18:3. Thou hast fashioned me, and made me in every point, so Broughton rendereth it. Totum me, non dimidium, Thou hast made the whole, and every part of me, from top to toe, not my nails excepted (as Mercer hath it), with extraordinary care and cunning, bestowing upon me mercies enough between head and foot to till a volume. Who is there, saith Galen, which, looking but upon the skin only of man’ s body, wondereth not at the artifice of the Creator? but especially he was amazed at the manner of the motion of the lungs by systole and diastole, and would needs offer hecatombs to that God, whosoever he were, that was author of so admirable and excellent a piece of work. Yet thou dost destroy me] And this seemeth strange to me. Dost thou yet destroy me? so some read this text; wilt thou swallow me up quick and devour me, as the greater fishes do the lesser? See the note on Job 10:3. Carest thou not that I am tby workmanship, created unto good works? Ephesians 2:10; one in whom thou hast erected the fair fabric of the new man? for this also Job may here very likely refer to.

Verse 8. Thine hands have made me] Thou art well acquainted with human nature, for thou art its author. And fashioned me together round about] All my powers and faculties have been planned and executed by thyself. It is thou who hast refined the materials out of which I have been formed, and modified them into that excellent symmetry and order in which they are now found; so that the union and harmony of the different parts, (יחד yachad,) and their arrangement and completion, (סביב sabib,) proclaim equally thy wisdom, skill, power, and goodness. Yet thou dost destroy me.] ותבלעני vatteballeeni, "and thou wilt swallow me up." Men generally care for and prize those works on which they have spent most time, skill, and pains: but, although thou hast formed me with such incredible skill and labour, yet thou art about to destroy me! How dreadful an evil must sin be, when, on its account, God has pronounced the sentence of death on all mankind; and that body, so curiously and skilfully formed, must be decomposed, and reduced to dust!

8. According to the Hebrew punctuation this verse reads, Thine hands have fashioned me and made me, Together round about; and thou dost destroy me! Mention of God’s hand, Job 10:7, suggests how of old God’s hand fashioned him with lavish expenditure of skill on all his parts, and he brings the contradiction of God’s present dealing with him before God—exclaiming, Thou dost destroy me!

Thine hands have made me - Job proceeds now to state that he had been made by God, and that he had shown great skill and pains in his formation.

b. Such hostile procedure of God toward Job is in contradiction to the blended love and wisdom displayed in the creation of man, seeing that God ruthlessly destroys what he has lovingly and artistically formed, Job 10:8-12.8.