Job 7

Job 7:14-22

18. Ibid. recess. 13. Phil. recess. Heb. cit. 4. The more Job went on to complain, the warmer his words grow.

19. He reflects upon the severity of God’s enquiry, and the rigour of his sentence. If he took one false step, it was marked as if God’s eye was over him for evil, and the continuance of his trouble he regarded as the sign his iniquity was unguedoned. He acknowledges if he were wicked, that then he could expect nothing but woe; and though righteous, as he seemed to be, conscious he was he would not, or dared not lift up his head before the holy majesty of heaven. Full of confusion through his anguish, he knew scarce what or how to speak, and therefore begs God to look upon his affliction in mercy, before it quite overwhelmed it; for inflicted of abating, the worms of trouble swelled daily higher: he was hunted with afflictions, as the fierce lion pursues his prey; and these so repeated and frayed, that he was an astonishment to others, and a wonder to himself. Every day freth calamities, as new evidences,

arose to testify his guilt, and the increasing indignation against him; his changes were only from evil to worse, and war from heaven, earth, and hell seemed to assault him. Note, (1.) If God be strict to mark what is amish, who may abide it? (2.) Wo to the wicked! whether prosperity or adversity extend them here, misery, intolerable as eternal, must be their portion hereafter. (3.) Though afflictions may be the strokes of God’s indignation, yet all the fruit of them is to take away our sin. (4.) If a child of God seem sunk in uncommon calamities, let him not defame; though the dispensation is grievous, it is for the trial of his faith. (5.) Reflections upon God as hard and severe, are very awful, and show an unhumbled Spirit.

2. He renews his impatient desire of death; begs at least that God would give him some short respite from his afflictions before he dropped into the grave. He expeditions with God, why he so unkindly drew him into a world so miserable, v. 18, wishes as before, chap. iii. 11: to have died from the womb, that no eye might have seen his misery, and that he might have departed as one that had never been. He urges the shortness of his days, as a plea for some moment’s comfort, before death should close his eyes in darkness, and lay him in the grave, whence there could be no return to earth again; where no-वarcation of days and years cheered the melancholy scene, no distinction of age, sex, or fashion appeared, no beam of light ever pierced the dreadful gloom, but shadows of death, dark and distant, were perpetually extended over it. Note, (1.) Every moment’s respite and calm we enjoy here, should be regarded as a mercy from God. (2.) The shorter our days are, the more we need to improve them. (3.) The moment God admits us here, is in order to prepare for our great change. (4.) The grave to sense affords a very melancholy prospect; but to the righteous there affords up light in the darkness, and faith can look thro’ the thick cloud, and behold those glories beyond, in prospect of which we can lay, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.