Why is Life so Hard?
January 9, 2021
Commentary
In this chapter Job talks to God about the seeming futility of his life. He questions as to why God should keep him alive. What is all this suffering accomplishing? Job says, “If I am a great sinner, either pardon my sins or take my life. Either way I will find some peace.” In response to his suffering, Job likens human life to that of a lowly servant or a slave. He is like a weary hired servant who gets no wages (vv. 1-2). He is in such pain that he tosses and turns all night and is unable to get any peace or rest (vv. 3-4). His body is covered with worms (probably eating his dead flesh) and has scabs that were festered with pus (v. 5). In one sense life seems to be dragging agonizingly along, but in another sense it is going by swifter than a weaver’s shuttle (v. 6). It is like wind and a cloud (vv. 7-10).
Job decided he has nothing to lose, so he might as well not hold anything back and tell God what he really thinks. He says that even when his diseased body (v. 4) does not torment him, God frightens him with dreams and visions to the point that he wishes he could die (vv. 11-16). Job felt that God was gazing at him continually and would not let him alone even for an instant.
Job then asked God to tell him how he had sinned. With this urgent request he asks that God forgive him if indeed he has sinned, before it is too late (vv. 17- 20). He seems to be saying that, if he is a sinner, why doesn’t God forgive him and be done with it (v. 21)? His question should have been, “What are you trying to teach me?” rather than, “Why am I having to suffer?” Hurting people need encouragement, not argument. We need to ask God to make our words like a healing medicine (Prov. 12:18).
Application
God’s thoughts are not always my thoughts, and what seems meaningless to me is reasonable to Him (Isa. 55:8-9). I must seek to know His will in my life.
Job 7:1– 21 (NET)
1 “Does not humanity have hard service on earth? Are not their days also like the days of a hired man?
2 Like a servant longing for the evening shadow, and like a hired man looking for his wages,
3 thus I have been made to inherit months of futility, and nights of sorrow have been appointed to me.
4 If I lie down, I say, ‘When will I arise?’ And the night stretches on and I toss and turn restlessly until the day dawns.
5 My body is clothed with worms and dirty scabs; my skin is broken and festering.
6 My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle and they come to an end without hope.
7 Remember that my life is but a breath, that my eyes will never again see happiness.
8 The eye of him who sees me now will see me no more; your eyes will look for me, but I will be gone.
9 As a cloud is dispersed and then disappears, so the one who goes down to the grave does not come up again.
10 He returns no more to his house, nor does his place of residence know him anymore.
11 “Therefore, I will not refrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.
12 Am I the sea, or the creature of the deep, that you must put me under guard?
13 If I say, ‘My bed will comfort me, my couch will ease my complaint,’
14 then you scare me with dreams and terrify me with visions,
15 so that I would prefer strangling, and death more than life.
16 I loathe it; I do not want to live forever; leave me alone, for my days are a vapor!
17 “What is mankind that you make so much of them, and that you pay attention to them?
18 And that you visit them every morning, and try them every moment?
19 Will you never look away from me, will you not let me alone long enough to swallow my spittle?
20 If I have sinned—what have I done to you, O watcher of men? Why have you set me as your target? Have I become a burden to you?
21 And why do you not pardon my transgression, and take away my iniquity? For now I will lie down in the dust, and you will seek me diligently, but I will be gone.”
Illustration: A Thief Risks His Life to Steal Money Where There is None
One night a thief broke into the single-room apartment of French novelist Honore de Balzac. Trying to avoid waking Balzac, the intruder quietly picked the lock on the writer’s desk. Suddenly the silence was broken by a sardonic laugh from the bed, where Balzac lay watching the thief. “Why do you laugh?” asked the thief. “I am laughing to think what risks you take to try to find money in a desk by night where the legal owner can never find any by day.” (Today in the Word, November 6, 1993).