Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 7:16
I loathe [it]; I would not live always: let me alone; for my days [are] vanity.
16. So keenly does he realize the misery of his condition and the intolerable painfulness of his life, that he breaks out into a passionate cry that he hates and is weary of life I loathe it. The object of his loathing is not expressed, but it is rather life in general, as the words, I would not live alway, indicate, than what he calls his “bones,” cf. Job 10:21. No emphasis falls on alway, the phrase “I would not live alway” is rather an exclamation of revulsion, meaning I desire not life.
let me alone ] i. e. cease from paining me with such afflictions. Job like his friends regarded his sufferings as inflicted directly by the hand of God, and if God would leave him his pains would cease. The words here are hardly a prayer, but something like an imperious command, to such a height of boldness is the sufferer driven by the keenness of his pains. The last words, “for my days are vanity,” support his demand that God would let him alone, by a reference to the shortness of his life; he seeks a little respite ere he die, cf. Job 10:20 seq. This reference to his life as “vanity” or a breath forms the natural transition to the next question.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
I loathe it – I loathe my life as it is now. It has become a burden and I desire to part with it, and to go down to the grave. There is, however, considerable variety in the interpretation of this. Noyes renders it, I am wasting away. Dr. Good connects it with the previous verse and understands by it, death in comparison with my sufferings do I despise. The Syriac is, – it fails to me, that is, I fail, or my powers are wasting away. But the Hebrew word ma’as means properly to loathe and contemn (see the note at Job 7:5), and the true idea here is expressed in the common version. The sense is, my life is painful and offensive, and I wish to die.
I would not live alway – As Job used this expression, there was doubtless somewhat of impatience and of an improper spirit. Still it contains a very important sentiment, and one that may be expressed in the highest state of just religious feeling. A man who is prepared for heaven should not and will not desire to live here always. It is better to depart and to be with Christ, better to leave a world of imperfection and sin, and to go to a world of purity and love. On this text, fully and beautifully illustrating its meaning, the reader may consult a sermon by Dr. Dwight. Sermons, Edinburgh, 1828, vol. ii. 275ff. This world is full of temptations and of sin; it is a world where suffering abounds; it is the infancy of our being; it is a place where our knowledge is imperfect, and where the affections of the best are comparatively grovelling; it is a world where the good are often persecuted, and where the bad are triumphant; and it is better to go to abodes where all these will be unknown. Heaven is a more desirable place in which to dwell than the earth; and if we had a clear view of that world, and proper desires, we should pant to depart and to be there. Most people live as though they would live always here if they could do it, and multitudes are forming their plans as if they expected thus to live. They build their houses and form their plans as if life were never to end. It is the privilege of the Christian, however, to EXPECT to die. Not wishing to live always here, he forms his plans with the anticipation that all which he has must soon be left; and he is ready to loose his hold on the world the moment the summons comes. So may we live; so living, it will be easy to die. The sentiments suggested by this verse have been so beautifully versified in a hymn by Muhlenberg, that I will copy it here:
I would not live alway; I ask not to stay
Where storm after storm rises dark oer the way;
The few fleeting mornings that dawn on us here
Are enough for lifes sorrows – enough for its cheer.
I would not live alway; no, welcome the tomb;
Since Jesus hath lain there, I dread not its gloom;
There sweet be my rest, till he bid me arise,
To hail him in triumph descending the skies.
Who, who would live alway, away from his God,
Away from yon heaven, that blissful abode,
Where rivers of pleasure flow oer the bright plains,
And the noontide of glory eternally reigns?
Where the saints of all ages in harmony meet,
Their Saviour and brethren transported to greet;
While anthems of rapture unceasingly roll,
And the smile of the Lord is the feast of the soul.
Let me alone – This is an address to God. It means, cease to afflict me. Suffer me to live out my little length of life with some degree of ease. It is short at best, and I have no desire that it should always continue. This sentiment he illustrates in the following verses.
For my days are vanity – They are as nothing, and are unworthy the notice of God. Life is a trifle, and I am not anxious that it should be prolonged. Why then may I not be suffered to pass my few days without being thus afflicted and pained?
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Job 7:16
I would not live alway.
Living alway
We are led to say with Job, I would not live alway.
I. From the state of things around us. They are subject to dissolution, and are actually dissolving. Every year we behold proofs and symptoms of this. Years as they pass speak to us of the consummation of all things. Is it a thing desirable to live alway in the dissolving scene?
II. From the condition of mankind. One generation goeth and another cometh. The fathers, where are they?
III. From the nature of human enjoyments. Human enjoyments there are, but they are fluctuating, and the memory of our early joys is all of them that remains. Human enjoyments not only fade and decay; they are often blasted in the bud or the blossom. Besides the real disappointments and evils of life there are imaginary evils. Some have hours of deep and awful melancholy. There is a time of life with every thinking person, when he looks no more forward to worldly objects of desire, when he leaves these things behind, and meditates the evening of his day. Then he thinks on the mercies of a past life, and takes up songs of praise.
IV. From difficulty in the duties of life. Favourable circumstances often attend our entrance into the world. By and by difficulties arise. It is sometimes difficult to fulfil the demands of justice. Even in a high station honours are apt to fade, and cares to multiply.
V. From the remains of sin. At first the Christian says, I will keep all Thy commandments. Then temptation prevails. Experience convinces him that human resolution is weak, that the heart is deceitful, that sin is wedded to mortality.
VI. The death of friends makes us say with job, I would not live alway. Friendship sweetens life; but the course of human affection is often interrupted, is often varied, is often embittered. The happiest union on earth must be dissolved, and the love of life dissolves with it. A beautiful view of providence opens. That which constitutes our greatest felicity on earth makes us most willing to depart. The friends of our youth have failed. The hour of departure rises on the soul, for we are going to a land peopled with our fathers, and our kindred, and the friends of our youth, Already our spirits mingle with theirs. (S. Charters.)
Death better than life
I would not live alway. The preference of death to life is the utterance, not of a devout and hopeful but of a despairing and repining spirit. With such a load of misery pressing upon him, and with no earthly comfort to relieve his anguish, it is not surprising that this godly man should give vent to his sorrows in a manner which cannot be wholly justified, and for which we find him afterwards expressing his contrition. It is right for a man to choose death rather than sin, but it can never be right for a man to choose death rather than life, when it is the will of God that he should live. A restless and rebellious longing for dissolution must always have the nature of sin: but the deliberate preference of heaven to earth may be characteristic of the Christian. Death is a change desirable to the believer.
I. Because it is the termination of all the evils and temptations by which he is surrounded here upon earth. The evil, even in the happiest life, outweighs the good. There are but two things really profitable and desirable upon earth,–godliness and contentment; and even these, although they make earthly sorrow tolerable, can neither wholly remove it, nor deprive it altogether of its power to disquiet us. The great work of sanctification is never wholly completed in this life. The holiest man is daily exposed to manifold temptations, and falls under them daily. Such is the power of remaining corruption, that the best man living upon earth is guilty of frequent departures from the requirement of God, and constantly falls short of it. Is this then a state in which a reasonable being would wish to remain forever? There is, in every child of God, a moral necessity of dying, that he may be fitted for eternal life.
II. Because it is the appointed entrance into a state of perfect holiness and inalienable joy. The change from earth to heaven is not indeed fully completed till the resurrection. A Christian cannot die. Death to the believer is but a shadow of death. It is wrong to think of the eternal life and happiness which is assured after death to the faithful in Christ, as nothing more than an expansion to all eternity of the life which we now have, exempted from all pain and sorrow, and fed with a continual supply of such pleasures as we are now capable of enjoying. That is a very low and very unscriptural view of the excellency of the glory which is to be revealed. The life which is promised to the believer is nothing less than a participation, through the Incarnate Son, in that fulness of life which makes the eternal being and infinite blessedness of God Himself. Such being the prize of our high calling, let us give all diligence to make our calling sure, lest, having this great hope held out to us, we should fall short of it. (W. Ramsay.)
I would not live alway
These words may signify a preference for immediate death, but they are capable of a modified and Christian sense; that this life would be undesirable if it were perpetual; that it would be better to die than to live here always. We have no sympathy with that sour, repining, self-torturing, mood, that selects and combines all that is dark and sad and discouraging in the present existence, and calls it a picture of human life. That is an unchristian mood. It is a false view. This world is full of beneficence to all creatures that inhabit it. Man cannot move or think but he experiences the arrangements of the Divine love. True, we meet with much to dishearten and sadden us. If our anxieties and sorrows were all brought together in one view, and it were forgotten how many alleviations and respites there were, how many mercies mingled with sorrows, what strength given for the occasion, what kind remembrance of our frames, and what tempering of the wind to the shorn lamb, the picture would be a black one indeed. But when we further reflect on the end of these chastenings, the wise purposes they serve in our moral education, the blessed results they accomplish for our minds and hearts, then we can bow contentedly to the appointments of Gods love. If good was not educed out of evil, evil would be a problem beyond our power to solve. Though troubled, then, by earthly ills, they shall not extinguish our love of life, or make us murmur under its wholesome corrections, its blessed ministries and teachings. Though we would not live alway, it is not because lifes cup has no sweetness to delight us, nor is it because it has in it bitterness and tears. The hopes, friendships, and privileges of existence are great, substantial, and noble things. They yield pure, elevated, and entrancing enjoyments. We would live for what of good and fair and affectionate and true there is in the present lot. And, on the other hand, we would live also for its purifying afflictions, its humbling reverses, its spiritualising bereavements, and healthy, though severe discipline. But though we would live, and live contentedly and joyfully, yet would we not live alway here. The whole arrangement of things, and the whole constitution of man, show that this world could not be a final home for us–that we could not endure to be immortal below. Even the most worldly would tire of the world, if they believed that they must abide in it always. The body, too,–exquisite in its construction, but frail, feeble, fatigued,–this could not be immortal here. We would not live alway, for friends have left us, and gone hence. From the bright and holy scenes of the upper world, from mansions of rest and glory, from bowers of beauty and bliss, they bend to invite us to ascend and dwell with them. That the future state is to be a social state, there can be no doubt. Moreover, our intellectual nature demands a finer culture, a wider range, and fewer lets and hindrances than it has here. With must of us the intellectual possibilities largely remain uncultivated. We wish, for ourselves and for the race, in the good time of our Fathers will, a removal to a condition better fitted than this to refine, unfold, and exalt our mental powers, in accordance with the manifest design of their Author, and their own ceaseless aspirations. Then again, we seek a nearer communion with Jesus and with God, higher excellence and virtue, a greater expansion of the moral and spiritual part of our nature. Much may be done, indeed, in this state. Our higher nature, with all its powers and aspirations, will be called into a new and happy exercise, of which the most blessed moments on earth have given us hardly any idea There is a faith that plucks out the sting of death, a resurrection that brings life and immortality to light. (A. A. Livermore.)
Continuance on earth not desired by the believer
The love of life is natural to all men. For the wisest purposes it has been implanted within us. But the Gospel has brought life and immortality to light, and has shown us that the valley of the shadow of death forms a passage for the believer to a world of light and glory everlasting. The reception of this Gospel into the heart changes both the scenes of mortality and the state of the mind, so as to regulate the love of life, produce a subjection to the will of God, and lead to a certain and cheery prospect of felicity beyond the grave.
I. The reasons which lead the Christian to desire a continuance in life. There are some who, through fear of death, are all their lifetime subject to bondage. This may be owing to the natural character and habit of the mind, to bodily indisposition, or to the power of temptation; or it may arise from a consciousness that they are destitute of the necessary meetness for heaven. Some desire life that they may yield themselves to Satan as servants. The Christians desire for continuance may arise–
1. From our relative connection with others. We are all bound by strong and tender ties.
2. It may arise from a sense of former slothfulness, or backslidings from the ways of God. Then, when death appears to be approaching, fear is excited.
3. It may arise from love to the Redeemers cause.
II. The reasons which lead good men, notwithstanding their natural love of life, to desire a departure from the present state. They know that there is a state of immortality and glory actually in existence beyond the grave.
1. A prospect of perfect freedom from suffering leads believers to entertain this desire.
2. So does a sense of the evil of sin.
3. The believer longs to quit this mortal state, because death will introduce him to a better Sabbath, and a perfect society.
4. The anticipated enjoyment of God and the Lamb is a strong reason why the righteous would not live alway. Learn what gratitude is due to God for His Gospel. Hence all our hopes arise; and by its cordial reception the believer is delivered from the love of life, and from the fear of death. (Essex Remembrancer.)
Why the believer does not wish to live always
A truth may sometimes be uttered in a bad spirit. This is. But it may be expressed with an intelligent submission to the Divine will, and be cherished in harmony with the Christian principles. There are reasons which induce the believer to utter this sentiment.
1. He knows it is not the will of God that he should live always. It is appointed unto all men once to die.
2. Because here the work of grace is but imperfectly developed. At present his piety is only elementary. Now we know in part.
3. Here the full blessing of justifying righteousness cannot be enjoyed. This blessing is now enjoyed by faith, and faith is fluctuating.
4. Here God is at best but imperfectly worshipped. The holy soul desires to worship God with undivided thought and affection. This outer court worship is too often interrupted by the din and bustle of worldly traffickers. Thoughts and affections are often intruders when the mind would be engaged in Gods worship.
5. The change is absolutely necessary for the completion of our blessedness and the perfection of the Divine glory. We must go home to be happy. In the consolations, hopes, and joys the believer realises in death God is glorified. (Evangelical Preacher.)
Reasons why good men may look forward with desire to the termination of life
The sentiment of the text is not unfrequently the breathing of a guilty soul–racked with remorse, stung by an accusing conscience, haunted by the recollection of deeds of guilt, and prompted by the hope, if not the sober belief, that death shall prove the end of all. The words of the text, however, do not necessarily imply either impiety or impatience. Even good men may be weary of life, and long for its close.
1. Good men may be so fax reconciled to death, from their experience of the evils of life, and the unsatisfactory nature of all earthly enjoyments. In infancy, we rejoice in parental care: in youth, our imagination is gladdened by the beauty and novelty of the scene around us; we live in hope, and are ignorant of the evil to come; in the maturity of life, we exercise, with peculiar satisfaction, our ripened powers, and draw liberally on the stores of friendship and affection. Yet is this world termed a vale of tears; and they who have lived the longest, and enjoyed the greatest portion of the worlds good, have with one voice declared their days to have been both few and evil.
2. Good men may be led to look forward with desire to the termination of life, from the changes taking place around them, and particularly the deaths of companions and friends.
3. Good men may be reconciled to death, and may be led even to desire it, from the remains of sin and their growing desire after perfection. (James Grant.)
A reasonable desire
I. Where a child of God would not live always. On earth. The utmost to be enjoyed or expected on this side heaven, cannot make him wish that it may be always with him as now, that this may be his everlasting abode.
1. You that are men of the world, would you live always?
2. You that have much of this worlds goods, would you live alway?
II. Why a child of God would not live alway in this present state. It is common for men in distress to wish for death, as having no other notion of it than of its being a freedom from their present pain and misery.
1. Because it is the will of God that the child of God should not live alway.
2. Saints would not live alway, from the concern and zeal they have for Gods glory.
3. From love to Christ the saint is willing to depart.
4. A child of God would behave after the example of Christ.
5. As feeling the evils of the present state, and having the believing prospect of a better.
(1) Those on earth that are even got nearest to heaven in preparation for it, are imperfect as to grace, and have much of the remains of corruption in them.
(2) Saints, while on earth, are in a state of sorrow as well as sin.
(3) Saints are in a state of warfare.
(4) They are here on trial as probationers for eternity, and so must be full of care and solicitude, how it shall go with them, and lest they should miscarry.
(5) In the present state, saints are at a distance from Christ.
(6) A child of God has foretastes of a better life.
III. What is implied in this saying?
1. That the saint believes he is one who is already, through grace, prepared for a better life.
2. While in this world, a child of God should think and speak, not as an inhabitant of it, but as a traveller through it; not as one fixed here, but as one in motion towards a better country, that is, a heavenly.
IV. In what manner should a child of God thus speak?
1. With a deep sense of the evil of sin, which hath made this world so undesirable.
2. With great seriousness, upon the consideration, how awful a thing it is to die.
3. Not as peremptorily fixing the time to what date he would have his life drawn out, or when cut off, but with entire resignation, referring the matter to God.
V. To whom may a saint speak thus?
1. To God by way of appeal.
2. To others we may utter this, when speaking of the concerns of our souls, and of eternity, to engage them to regard us as those who are dying, and well satisfied in the choice we have made, of God for our portion, and heaven as our home.
3. To himself. Application–
(1) How admirable is the grace of God in the change it makes in His people!
(2) What reason have we to bless God for the discoveries of the Gospel.
(3) Make sure of a title to a better life and state. (D. Wilcox.)
The advantage of not living alway
The Quiver contains a paper on Butterflies, by the late Rev. Dr. Hugh Macmillan. This must have been one of the last papers written by that charming writer, and most cultured of men, and it is a curious coincidence that just before the great change came to him he should have written thus, Death is the shadow feared by man, as apparent destruction; but should we live always as we now live upon the earth, should we never pass through the experience of death, we should remain mere human embryos, undeveloped beings forever. It is only through death that the mortal can put on immortality. It is only undergoing a metamorphosis as complete as and at present more inexplicable than that which the caterpillar undergoes when it passes through the apparently lifeless condition of the chrysalis and becomes a butterfly, that we can pass from the seeming hopeless condition of the grave to the winged condition of the angel, acquire the full power of our being, and soar from earth to heaven. (Christian Endeavour Times.)
On death
There is nothing to which human nature is more averse than to dissolution. Death presents himself to the imagination of every man, clothed with terrors.
1. A due respect to the Divine will would deter us from wishing to live alway. Our life is not made transient by any malignant power. Why should we turn with regret from any allotment to which it is the will of God we should submit? There is, in submission to the laws to which the all-wise Creator hath subjected our nature, both safety and virtue.
2. We may be reconciled to the necessity of dying by considering who have passed through the gate of death.
3. The condition of this present state is such that no Christian can wish to live in it always. Not that it becomes us to find fault with the circumstances of our present existence. It is problematical whether our virtue or our trials would prevail, if our probation were prolonged; but discretion would seem to plead for the shortest exposure to evil. Death releases us from the temptations, ignorance, and sorrows of this probationary existence.
4. A just consideration of the future life will reconcile us entirely to the transitoriness of this. If to die were to cease to be, we might with a desperate tenacity cling to this present existence, chequered and unsatisfactory as it is.
5. By His death, the Captain of our salvation hath overcome death, and made the passage through the grave the ordinary entrance to the reward of our inheritance. What a body of motives is here to induce you, when your Creator shall call you out of this life, to depart willingly! Lay them up in your memories. (Bishop Dehon.)
Death preferable to life
There are few stronger principles in the human breast than the love of life. The desire of self-preservation is instinctive, and operates long before reason dawns, or experience attaches us to the pleasures of existence. Nor are men attached to life merely by the principle of instinct. I could willingly die, said an expiring Christian, were there not friends to whom it is hard to say farewell. Life is made pleasant, and attachment to it is strengthened by friendship and the social relations. And then our fears have exhibited death with terrific aspect, and surrounded it with horrid drapery. The coffin, the shroud, the darkness and dampness, the silence and coldness of the grave, the worm and the corruption, and the untried and eternal state into which death introduces the soul, are circumstances calculated to make the stoutest heart recoil, and cling with closest grasp upon its hold of life. But these attachments and apprehensions are incident to our frailty. Through the grace of God, they may be overcome and renounced. The believer in Christ can say, I would not live alway.
I. There is the greatest wisdom in this choice, since should he live alway, the evils of the present life could be prolonged and perpetuated.
1. I would not live alway, exposed to the evils incident to this mortal body–under the continual infliction of Gods original curse upon man, In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread; or perpetually exposed to the ravages of the pestilence that walketh in darkness, and to the violence of the sickness that wasteth at noonday;–to be forever a partaker of that nature whose beauty is a fading flower, whose strength is labour and sorrow, whose eyes fail through dimness, and whose ears grow dull of hearing, and whose head totters with infirmity, and whitens with the frosts of age, whose limbs are scorched with fever, and racked with pain, and then chilled with ague, and shaken with anguish,–to be frozen by the severity of winter and burn by the fervour of summer.
2. I would not live alway, the subject of mental infirmity. What ignorance beclouds the mind of wretched man! How much carefulness and painstaking must be expended before he can be taught things the most necessary to be known! How often is his judgment, even in its most vigorous exercise, erring and imperfect! Frequent are his mistakes, and erroneous his conclusions, even in affairs of the utmost importance, and which intimately concern his own welfare.
3. I would not live alway, in the midst of a selfish and malignant world, where my conduct is misrepresented, my motives misunderstood, my character assailed, and my best interests injured and obstructed; where envy displays her malignant features, and detraction employs her envenomed tongue to destroy my reputation; where jealousy invents, and malice contrives, their cruel purposes to disturb my peace.
4. I would not live alway, the witness, as well as the subject of human miseries. It is painful to the benevolent heart to witness the misfortunes and follies of men. It is painful to discern, among the youth, a young man void of understanding, wasting his patrimony in extravagance and dissipation; degrading the noble faculties of body and mind, with which God has endowed him; and descending prematurely down to the grave, and to the shades of eternal death, the victim of accursed intemperance. It is painful to see the impenitent and prayerless sinner, careless of his rebellion, and thoughtless of his danger, sporting with the menaces of Jehovah, and mocking at the threatenings of the Almighty, and yet to know that between him and eternal burnings there only intervenes–what is liable to be sundered at any moment–the thin fragile veil of flesh.
5. Well may the Christian, the witness of such spectacles, and himself the servant of unholy passions, declare, I would not live alway. When his faith is firm, doubts and obscurities will sometimes arise and weaken it. When his hopes are bright, sin and impenitence will obscure and darken them. When his love to God and men is fervent, unholy feelings will spring up and dampen and allay it. When the Sun of Righteousness shines upon him, his iniquities will often arise like a thick cloud, envelop him in spiritual darkness, and leave him in mental misery.
6. I would not live alway, exposed to temptations and enticements to sin. The alluring example of men whom, for some good qualities, the Christian has been taught to respect, will offer its persuasions to divert him from the path of life. Learning, and intelligence, and wit, and persuasion, will be employed by those who in appearance are angels of light, to weaken his allegiance to his crucified Master.
7. Himself the subject and witness of misery and sin, the Christian will say, I would not live alway, especially since God has otherwise determined. His daily prayer will be, My Father, Thy will be done; and acquiescence in the will of God will constitute the perfection of his religious character. He will therefore desire to depart from this wretched life, knowing that God has prepared some better thing for him.
II. There is wisdom in the Christians choice, for, should his life not terminate, he would not be admitted into the joys of heaven.
1. His corruptible body would not then put on incorruption, nor his mortal, immortality. The righteous shall shine forth as the sun; they shall shine as the brightness of the firmament and as the stars forever and ever. The Saviour said that the children of the resurrection will be equal to the angels, and therefore will resemble angels in their glory and beauty.
2. In heaven, the faculties of the mind, as well as those of the body, will in a wonderful measure be strengthened and perfected. The memory, perfected and made retentive, will preserve whatever is committed to its trust. The understanding, thus aided by the other mental powers, redeemed and invigorated, will be making perpetual advances in knowledge. For not only will the faculties of the mind be improved, but the field of investigation will be proportionably enlarged. The scene of observation and improvement will not be this little earth, and its limited productions, but the wonders and glories of the celestial regions. I would not live alway, in prospect of such an increase of knowledge and intelligence, the perpetual subject of mental imperfection, of ignorance and weakness.
3. I would not live alway, away from my home. How many pleasing associations and tender recollections are awakened by the mention of home! Around what place do the affections linger with such strong attachment, or what spot looks bright and happy, when the rest of the world appears dark and cheerless, but that characterised by the expressive word home? Where do the skies wear a peculiar brightness, and nature present peculiar cheerfulness and loveliness, but at home? But heaven is the Christians home. Here, he is a stranger and a sojourner; but he is travelling to a city which hath foundations, the abode of friendship and peace. Divine love is the sacred principle that animates all hearts in the regions of bliss, from the rapt seraph to him who has washed his robes in the blood of the Lamb. It unites the inhabitants of heaven in an indissoluble bond of harmony, and attaches them to God Himself. Security also is there. Security from the influence of unholy affections, from the temptations and hostility of wicked men, and from the enmity and malice of the great spiritual foe. With the Prince of Peace, peace shall ever reign, and from the right hand of God shall flow the river of His pleasures for evermore.
4. I would not live alway separated from my pious friends, in whose sacred society and holy friendship I found such delight and profit, but who have preceded me in their entrance into glory. For in heaven the pious friendships of this world shall be renewed and perpetuated.
5. I would not live alway, for in the midst of that holy brotherhood is Jesus Christ, their elder brother, the faithful and true witness; that Jesus, the desire and Saviour of all nations; and whom I desire to see; my Saviour I to whom I have so often prayed, and in whom I have so long trusted; Him who has for years been my invisible teacher and defence, and whom, though not seeing, yet have I loved! (S. Fuller.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 16. I loathe it; I would not live alway] Life, in such circumstances, is hateful to me; and though I wish for long life, yet if length of days were offered to me with the sufferings which I now undergo, I would despise the offer and spurn the boon.
Mr. Good is not satisfied with our common version, and has adopted the following, which in his notes he endeavours to illustrate and defend:
Ver. 15. So that my soul coveteth suffocation,
And death in comparison with my suffering.
Ver. 16. No longer would I live! O, release me!
How are my days vanity!
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
I loathe it, to wit, my life, last mentioned. I would not live alway in this world if I might, no, not in prosperity, for even such a life is but vanity, much less in this extremity of misery. Or, let me not live for ever, lingering in this miserable manner, as if thou wouldst not suffer me to die, but hadst a design to perpetuate my torments. Or, let me not live out mine age, or the full time of my life, which by the course of nature I might do; for so the Hebrew word olam is oft used; but cut me off, and that speedily.
Let me alone, i.e. withdraw thy hand from me; either,
1. Thy supporting hand, which preserves my life, and suffer me to die; or rather,
2. Thy correcting hand, as this same phrase is used, 7:19.
My days are vanity; either,
1. My life is in itself, and in its best estate, a most vain, unsatisfying, uncertain thing; do not add this evil to it to make it miserable. Or,
2. My life is a vain, decaying, and perishing thing, it will of itself quickly vanish and depart, and doth not need to be forced from me by such exquisite torments.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
16. Let me alonethat is,cease to afflict me for the few and vain days still left to me.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
I loathe [it],…. Or “them” k, either his life, which was a weariness to him, or his bones, which were so painful and nauseous; or rather, “I am become loathsome”, to himself, to his servants, and to his friends, and even his breath was strange to his wife; or “being ulcerated, I pine and waste away” l, and must in course be quickly gone:
I would not live always; no man can or will; there is no man that lives but what shall see death, Ps 89:48; Job knew this, nor did he expect or desire it; and this was not his meaning, but that he desired that he might not live long, or to the full term of man’s life, yea, that he might die quickly; and indeed to a good man to die is gain; and to depart out of the world, and be with Christ, is far better than to continue in it. And had Job expressed himself without passion, and with submission to the divine will, what he says would not have been amiss:
let me alone; or “cease from me” m; from afflicting him any more, having as great a weight upon him as he could bear, or greater than he could well stand up under; or from supporting him in life, he wishes that either God would withdraw his afflicting hand from him, or his preserving hand; either abate the affliction, or dismiss him from the world:
for my days [are] vanity; a “breath” n or puff of wind; a “vapour”, as Mr. Broughton renders it, that soon vanishes away; days empty of all that is good, delightful, and pleasant, and full of evil, trouble, and sorrow, as well as fleeting, transitory, and soon gone, are as nothing, yea, less than nothing, and vanity.
k “Aspernor vitam”, Piscator; so Jarchi Ben Gersom. l “tabui”, Cocceius “ulceratus tabesco”, Schultens. m “cessa a me”, Pagninus, Montanus, Bolducius, Schmidt. n “halitus”, Michaelis, Schultens.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
7. To God he addresses some difficult questions. (Job. 7:16-21)
TEXT 7:1621
16 I loathe my life; I would not live alway:
Let me alone; for my days are vanity.
17 What Is man, that thou shouldest magnify him,
And that thou shouldest set thy mind upon him,
18 And that thou shouldest visit him every morning,
And try him every moment?
19 How long wilt thou not look away from me,
Nor let me alone till I swallow down my spittle?
20 If I have sinned, what do I unto thee, O thou watcher of men?
Why hast thou set me as a mark for thee,
So that I am a harden to myself?
21 And why dost thou not pardon my transgression, and take away mine iniquity?
For now shall I lie down in the dost;
And thou wilt seek me diligently, but I shall not be.
COMMENT 7:1621
Job. 7:16I loathe can be connected with the previous verse, as my life is not in the Hebrew text. MeaningI despise death more than my pain.[104] Vanity is the same word translated vanity of vanities in Ecc. 1:2.
[104] See Dhorme, Job, p. 107.
Job. 7:17-18Here we note a parody of Psa. 8:4 ff (Heb. 2:6). We encounter strong irony in Jobs words set thy mind upon or pay attention. God, why are you devoting so much unfriendly attention to man in general, and specifically to Job? Is this divine providence? Pope describes this as overbearing inquisitiveness and unrelenting surveillance,[105] Job. 23:10; Zec. 13:3; Psa. 17:3visittest parallel (note this is true of Israel, Jesus, the Suffering Servant, and Christians) in the temptation narratives.
[105] Pope, Job, Anchor, p. 62; also J. Hempel, Forchungen and Fonchritte, Vol. 35 (Berlin, 1961), p. 123, for analysis of surveillance theme.
Job. 7:19Job feels that he cannot get away from Gods hostile eye, even for a moment. Compare Jobs experience and DavidsPsa. 33:18; Psa. 34:15. The idiomatic expression Let me swallow my spittle means wait, or let me alone for a moment.
Job. 7:20Surely Job is not that important to God that He should watch over him. Even if Job admits that he has sinned, he has not hurt God commensurate with the suffering with which Job has been inflicted. The word translated mark (only found here in the Old Testament) is not a target, but something which one strikes1Ki. 2:25. Job is weary of being a mark for Gods hostile action that life (burdenmassa) has become an intolerable malaise.
Job. 7:21Even inadvertent sin does not deserve all the inflicted pain which was fallen to Jobs lot. Even if God forgives, it will be too late. Job will be dead. Again the pessimism that only resurrection can shatter. Godseek me (from noun meaning dawn or early)Pro. 8:17. Jeremiah speaks of God rising up early to send the prophets to IsraelJer. 7:13; Jer. 7:25; Jer. 25:4. Job maintains that God will in the end realize His mistake, but it will be too late. Throughout Job maintains belief in a creator-redeemer God of Justice, Holiness, and Love, while attacking Him for cruelty and inhuman threat.[106]
[106] The twentieth century has and continues to express deep unbelief regarding the Christian view of God. Without question the fundamental reason is the intensification of injustice, suffering, evil, and general cultural crisis. See my syllabus Discovering the Christian Mind (Apologetics-Evidences); and Martin Marty, Varieties of Unbelief (New York: Doubleday); Jas. Collins, God in Modern Philosophy (Chicago: Regnery, 1967); and S. Schrey, Latheisme Contemporain (Paris, 1964).
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
(16) I loathe iti.e., the thought of self-destruction; or, I loathe my life; or, according to others (see the margin), I waste away: this, however, is perhaps less probable. Then the thought comes with a ray of comfort, I shall not live for ever; for this seems more in accordance with the context than the Authorised Version: I would not live always.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
16. I loathe it . Some (Conant and Renan) would render it “waste away,” “dissolve,” 2Co 5:1: its more ordinary meaning, to “loathe,” despise, is better here. Thus Delitzsch, etc.
I would not live alway Sir Thomas Browne felicitated himself that “though it be in the power of the weakest arm to take away life, it is not in the strongest to deprive us of death.” Works, 2:389. Plotinus, the Neo-Platonist, thanked God that his soul was not tied to an immortal body. Compare the hymn of Muhlenberg on this text with the pessimism of Schopenhauer. See LIDDON, Elements of Religion, p. 132.
Let me alone Cease from me. As if he would say, Man’s life depends upon the presence, or the conscious putting forth, of power upon the part of God. If he withdraw that presence, or cease that activity, man perishes. There is no other way to account for life; that mysterious power which upholds the upright elaborated matter, a human body. How closely does the expression “cease from me” bring the living man into relationship to God. Comp. Psa 104:29-30.
Vanity , a breath; the name Abel bore.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
“Handfuls of Purpose”
For All Gleaners
“Let me alone” Job 7:16
Here, again, is a natural exclamation, but one which we must train ourselves to stifle. No man can be let alone and yet live; in other words, life is an expression of communion and not of isolation. It is pleasant for the moment only to be left to oneself; even then the pleasure is a mere sensation, and is not the expression of a deep and permanent satisfaction. Can the branch say to the tree, Let me alone? Can the limb say to the body, Let me exist by myself? Can the hand live without being attached to the heart? Trace every human life in its finest expressions and issues, and it will be found that even the most lonely are not without association with the greatest, yea, even with God himself. Sometimes, for a moment, we may wish that even God himself would withdraw from us, at least in all controversial and judicial aspects: he presses us with too many questions, he impoverishes us by too many demands, he exhausts us by appeals too numerous to be answered. When we ask to be let alone, it is our weakness that speaks, not our strength: our exhaustion, not our reason. The one prayer we should constantly offer is, not to be let alone, but to be evermore an object of divine solicitude, and to be evermore called upon to answer divine claims. When God lets a man alone the man’s doom is sealed. In the Book of Amos we find the words, “Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone”; preservation from this state should be our continual and ardent desire, When the sun lets the earth alone, the earth is chilled into ice. When the mother lets the infant alone, the infant dies. Let us take heart, for all the controversy through which we pass is but so much discipline, and the end of all discipline sent by Heaven and properly accepted by man is culture, strength, satisfaction.
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
Job 7:16 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, Mat 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
For my days are vanity
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
loathe [it] = loathe [life], Job 7:16 is parenthetical, being the thought of suicide, which intrudes itself upon him.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
I loathe it: Job 3:20-22, Job 6:9, Job 10:1, Gen 27:46, 1Ki 19:4, Jon 4:3, Jon 4:8
let me alone: Job 10:20, Job 14:6, Psa 39:10, Psa 39:13
my days: Psa 62:9, Psa 78:33, Psa 144:4, Ecc 6:11, Ecc 6:12
Reciprocal: Num 14:2 – Would Job 9:21 – I would Job 13:13 – and let come Job 16:7 – he hath Psa 78:39 – a wind Ecc 2:17 – I hated Isa 15:4 – his Jer 8:3 – death Luk 14:26 – hate Rev 9:6 – shall men
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Job 7:16. I loath it To wit, my life, last mentioned. I would not live alway In this world, if I might, no not in prosperity; for even such a life is but vanity; much less in this extremity of misery. Let me alone That is, withdraw thy hand from me, either, 1, Thy supporting hand, which preserves my life, and suffer me to die: or, rather, 2, Thy correcting hand, as this phrase signifies, Job 7:19. For my days are vanity My life is in itself, and in its best estate, a vain, unsatisfying, uncertain thing, empty of solid comfort, and exposed to real griefs, and therefore I would not be for ever tied to it. And it is a decaying and perishing thing, and will, of itself, quickly vanish and depart, and does not need to be forced from me by such exquisite torments.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
7:16 I loathe [it]; I would not live alway: {l} let me alone; for my days [are] vanity.
(l) Seeing my term of life is so short, let me have some rest and ease.