Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 7:6
My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, and are spent without hope.
6. By his “days” is meant his life as a whole, not his individual days, which are far from passing quickly ( Job 7:4); and “are spent” means, have been consumed (as Job 7:9), or, are come to an end (Gen 21:15). He regards his life as near a close, for his disease was incurable; this is expressed by “without hope,” i. e. hope of recovery or relief.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
My days are swifter than a weavers shuttle – That is, they are short and few. He does not here refer so much to the rapidity with which they were passing away as to the fact that they would soon be gone, and that he was likely to be cut off without being permitted to enjoy the blessings of a long life; compare the notes at Isa 38:12. The weavers shuttle is the instrument by which the weaver inserts the filling in the woof. With us few things would furnish a more striking emblem of rapidity than the speed with which a weaver throws his shuttle from one side of the web to the other. It would seem that such was the fact among the ancients, though the precise manner in which they wove their cloth, is unknown. It was common to compare life with a web, which was filled up by the successive days. The ancient Classical writers spoke of it as a web woven by the Fates. We can all feel the force of the comparison used here by Job, that the days which we live fly swift away. How rapidly is one after another added to the web of life! How soon will the whole web be filled up, and life be closed! A few more shoots of the shuttle and all will be over, and our life will be cut off, as the weaver removes one web from the loom to make way for another. How important to improve the fleeting moments, and to live as if we were soon to see the rapid shuttle flying for the last time!
And are spent without hope – Without hope of recovery, or of future happiness on earth. It does not mean that he had no hope of happiness in the world to come. But such were his trials here, and so entirely had his comforts been removed, that he had no prospect of again enjoying life.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Job 7:6
My days are swifter than a weavers shuttle.
The web of life
These words fitly describe the quickness with which the days of our life glide away. The weaver at his frame swiftly throws the shuttle from side to side, backwards and forwards, and every throw leaves a thread behind it, which is woven into the piece of cloth he is making. And Job compares human life to the shuttles motions.
I. The swiftness of our days. When anything is gone, and gone forever, we begin to think more of its value. Man is like a thing of nought–his time passeth away like a shadow.
II. Each day has added another thread to the web of life. What is our life but a collection of days? Each day adds something to the colour and complexion of the whole life–something for good or evil. Thus each day is, as it were, a representative of the whole life. Of how great importance then is every day!
III. We weave now what we wear in eternity. Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. Scriptures declare that our life will be brought into evidence to show whether we were believers in Christ or not. Then let us ask ourselves these questions–
1. On what are we resting our hope of salvation?
2. Is it our sincere desire to be conformed to the likeness of Jesus Christ?
3. Do we live in the spirit of prayer?
4. How has the day of our life been spent? What have we done for Gods glory? (E. Blencowe, M. A.)
The web of life
I. The swiftness of our days. We are apt not to prize them till they are gone. Each was full of mercies: did we appreciate them? Each was full of opportunities: did we use them wisely or abuse them?
II. Each day adds a thread to the web of life. Each day has its influence for good or evil, for sin or holiness, for God or Satan.
III. What we now weave we shall wear in eternity. What is the web your life is weaving? Application–
1. On what are you resting your hopes of salvation?
2. Is it your sincere desire to be conformed to the likeness of Jesus?
3. Do you live in the spirit of prayer?
4. Consider at the close of each day how it has been spent.
5. What, on the whole, is the texture and colouring of the web of your life as you look upon it in the light of another dying or opening year? (Homiletic Review.)
The web of life
A Christian mans life is laid in the loom of time to a pattern which he does not see, but God does: and his heart is a shuttle. On one side of the loom is sorrow, and on the other joy; and the shuttle, struck alternately by each, flies back and forth, carrying the thread, which is white or black as the pattern needs. And in the end, when God shall lift up the finished garment and all its changing hues shall glance out, it will then appear that the deep and dark colours were as needful to beauty as the bright and high colours. (H. W. Beecher.)
Lifes brevity
How brief it is! Who stood sentinel by the gate of Shushan when the royal couriers, bearing hope to the Jews, dashed through, burying their spurs in their horses flanks–who stood on the platform by the iron rails that stretch from Holyhead to London, when signals flashed on along the line to stop the traffic and keep all clear, an engine and carriage dashed by with tidings of peace or war from America–saw an image of life. The eagle poising herself a moment on the wing, and then rushing at her prey; the ship that throwing the spray from her bows, scuds before the gale; the shuttle flashing through the loom; the shadow of a cloud sweeping the hillside, and then gone forever; the summer flowers that vanishing, have left our gardens bare, and where were spread out the colours of the rainbow, only dull, black earth, or the rotting wreck of beauty–these with many other fleeting things, are emblems by which God through nature teaches us how frail we are, at the longest how short our days. (T. Guthrie.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 6. Swifter than a weaver’s shuttle] The word areg signifies rather the weaver than his shuttle. And it has been doubted whether any such instrument were in use in the days of Job. Dr. Russell, in his account of Aleppo, shows that though they wove many kinds of curious cloth, yet no shuttle was used, as they conducted every thread of the woof by their fingers. That some such instrument as the shuttle was in use from time immemorial, there can be no doubt: and it is certain that such an instrument must have been in the view of Job, without which the figure would lose its expression and force. In almost every nation the whole of human existence has been compared to a web; and the principle of life, through the continual succession of moments, hours, days, weeks, months, and years, to a thread woven through that web. Hence arose the fable of the Parcae or Fates, called also the Destinies or Fatal Sisters. They were the daughters of Erebus and Nox, darkness and night; and were three in number, and named Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos. Clotho held the distaff; Lachesis spun off the thread; and Atropos cut it off with her scissors, when it was determined that life should end. Job represents the thread of his life as being spun out with great rapidity and tenuity, and about to be cut off.
And are spent without hope.] Expectation of future good was at an end; hope of the alleviation of his miseries no longer existed. The hope of future good is the balm of life: where that is not, there is despair; where despair is, there is hell. The fable above mentioned is referred to by Virgil, Ecl. iv., ver. 46, but is there applied to time: –
Talia Secla, suis dixerunt, currite, fusis
Concordes stabili fatorum numine Parcae.
“The FATES, when they this happy thread have spun
Shall bless the sacred clue, and bid it smoothly run.”
DRYDEN.
Isaiah uses the same figure, Isa 38:12: –
My life is cut off, as by the weaver:
He will sever me from the loom.
In the course of the day thou wilt finish my web.
LOWTH.
Coverdale translates thus: My dayes passe over more spedely then a weaver can weave out his webbe and are gone or I am awarre.
A fine example of this figure is found in the Teemour Nameh, which I shall give in Mr. Good’s translation: –
“Praise be to God, who hath woven the web of human affairs in the loom of his will and of his wisdom, and hath made waves of times and of seasons to flow from the fountain of his providence into the ocean of his power.” The simile is fine, and elegantly expressed.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
The time of my life hastens to a period; and therefore vain are those hopes which you give me of a restitution to my former prosperity in this world.
A weavers shuttle, which passeth in a moment from one end of the web to the other.
Without hope, to wit, of enjoying any good day here.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
6. (Isa38:12). Every day like the weaver’s shuttle leaves a threadbehind; and each shall wear, as he weaves. But Job’s thought is thathis days must swiftly be cut off as a web;
without hopenamely, ofa recovery and renewal of life (Job 14:19;1Ch 29:15).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle,…. Which moves very swiftly, being thrown quick and fast to and fro; some versions render it “a racer” b one that runs a race on foot, or rides on horseback, agreeably to Job 9:25; where, and in Job 7:7; to it, other similes are used, to set forth the swiftness and fleetness of man’s days; as they also are elsewhere represented, as swift as a tale told, a word expressed, or a thought conceived, Ps 90:9; and so here, by the Septuagint, are said to be “swifter than speech”, though wrongly translated: this is to be understood, not of his days of affliction, distress, and sorrow; for these in his apprehension moved but slowly, and he could have been, glad that they had gone on faster; but either his days in common, or particularly his days of prosperity and pleasure, these were soon over with him; and which he sometimes wished for again, see Job 29:1;
and are spent without hope; not without hope of happiness in another world, but without hope of being restored to his outward felicity in this; which Eliphaz had given him some him of, but he had no hope concerning it; see Job 5:24.
b , Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion in Drusius.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
6. A weaver’s shuttle The art of weaving reaches back to the dawn of civilization. It was carried to a high state of proficiency among the Egyptians, as is seen in the specimens of mummy clothing which still remain, and which are pronounced to be not inferior to the finest cambrics of modern times. (Wilkinson.) Hezekiah likened the cutting off of his life to a weaver’s cutting off of his thread. Thus in Arabsha’s life of Taimur we read: “Verily the thread of life is joined to that which cuts it: and the texture of existence is knitted together with death.” An acute writer has said, “Perhaps no angelic mind has quickness of thought enough to fix on a moment as present.”
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Job 7:6. And are spent without hope vayiklu beaepes tikvah. Literally, And they are destroyed even to the extremity of hope. Heath renders it, And even the least glimmering of hope is at an end.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Job 7:6 My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, and are spent without hope.
Ver. 6. My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle] Which is of a very swift and sudden motion. Nights and days pass the shuttle of man’s life forward and backward, to and again. The night casts it to the day, and the day to the night; between these two time quickly wears off the thread of life. I have cut off, like a weaver, my life, saith good Hezekiah, Isa 38:12 . And the heathens hammered at this in their fiction of the three sister destinies, whereof the poet saith,
Clotho colum baiulat, Lachesis trahit, Atropos occat.
You that are weavers, saith Lavater, or lookers on them at their work, think of this text, and learn to live holy.
And they are spent without hope
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
swifter: Job 9:25, Job 16:22, Job 17:11, Psa 90:5, Psa 90:6, Psa 102:11, Psa 103:15, Psa 103:16, Psa 144:4, Isa 38:12, Isa 38:13, Isa 40:6, Isa 40:7, Jam 1:11, Jam 4:14, 1Pe 1:24
without hope: Job 6:11, Job 17:15, Pro 14:32, Jer 2:25, Eph 2:12, 1Pe 1:13
Reciprocal: Exo 35:35 – of the weaver Job 8:9 – we are but Job 10:20 – my days few Job 11:18 – because Job 14:1 – of few days Psa 39:5 – Behold Psa 119:84 – How Ecc 8:13 – as a
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
7:6 My days are swifter than {d} a weaver’s shuttle, and are spent without hope.
(d) Thus he speaks in respect for the brevity of man’s life, which passes without hope of returning: in consideration of which he desires God to have compassion on him.