Job 7:7

O remember that my life is wind: mine eye shall no more see good.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Benson Commentary

Job 7:7-8. O remember — He turns his speech to God; perhaps observing that his friends grew weary of hearing it. If men will not hear us, God will: if men cannot help us, he can: for his arm is not shortened, neither is his ear heavy. The eye, &c., shall see me no more — In this mortal state: I shall never return to this life again. Thine eyes are upon me, and I am not — If thou cast one angry look upon me, I am not; that is, I am a dead man: or, when thine eyes shall be upon me, that is, when thou shalt look for me to do me good, thou wilt find that I am not, that I am dead and gone, and incapable of enjoying that bounty and goodness which thou givest to men in this world.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

7:7-16 Plain truths as to the shortness and vanity of man's life, and the certainty of death, do us good, when we think and speak of them with application to ourselves. Dying is done but once, and therefore it had need be well done. An error here is past retrieve. Other clouds arise, but the same cloud never returns: so a new generation of men is raised up, but the former generation vanishes away. Glorified saints shall return no more to the cares and sorrows of their houses; nor condemned sinners to the gaieties and pleasures of their houses. It concerns us to secure a better place when we die. From these reasons Job might have drawn a better conclusion than this, I will complain. When we have but a few breaths to draw, we should spend them in the holy, gracious breathings of faith and prayer; not in the noisome, noxious breathings of sin and corruption. We have much reason to pray, that He who keeps Israel, and neither slumbers nor sleeps, may keep us when we slumber and sleep. Job covets to rest in his grave. Doubtless, this was his infirmity; for though a good man would choose death rather than sin, yet he should be content to live as long as God pleases, because life is our opportunity of glorifying him, and preparing for heaven.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

O remember - This is evidently an address to God. In the anguish of his soul Job turns his eye and his heart to his Maker, and urges reasons why he should close his life. The extent of his sufferings, and the certainty that he must die Job 7:9-10, are the reasons on which he dwells why his life should be closed, and he released. The language is respectful, but it is the expression of deep anguish and sorrow.

That my life is wind - Life is often compared with a vapor, a shadow, a breath. The language denotes that it is frail, and soon passed - as the breeze blows upon us, and soon passes by; compare Psalm 78:39 :

For he remembered that they were but flesh;

A wind that passeth away and cometh not again.

Mine eye shall no more - Margin, as in Hebrew not return. The idea is, that if he was cut off, he would not return again to behold the pleasant scenes of this life.

See good - Margin, To see, that is, to enjoy. The sense is that he would no more be permitted to look upon the things which now so much gratified the sight, and gave so much pleasure. There is some resemblance here to the feelings expressed by Hezekiah in his apprehension of death; see the notes at Isaiah 38:10-11.

Job 7:7.So the Psalmist,

For he remembered that they were but flesh,

A wind that passeth away and that cometh not again.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

7. Address to God.

Wind—a picture of evanescence (Ps 78:39).

shall no more see—rather, "shall no more return to see good." This change from the different wish in Job 3:17, &c., is most true to nature. He is now in a softer mood; a beam from former days of prosperity falling upon memory and the thought of the unseen world, where one is seen no more (Job 7:8), drew from him an expression of regret at leaving this world of light (Ec 11:7); so Hezekiah (Isa 38:11). Grace rises above nature (2Co 5:8).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

He turneth his speech to God, as appears from Job 7:8,12,14.

Wind, i.e. vain, Isaiah 47:13 Hosea 8:7; quickly passing away, so as never to come again, as is said, Psalm 78:39.

See good, i.e. enjoy (for so seeing is sometimes used, as Psalm 34:12 Jeremiah 17:6) good, to wit, in this world, as my friends flatter me. Compare Job 14:12 19:26,27.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

O remember that my life is wind,.... Or, "breath" (c); man's life is in his breath, and that breath is in his nostrils, and therefore not to be accounted of, or depended on; man appears by this to be a poor frail creature, whose life, with respect to himself, is very precarious and uncertain; it is but as a "vapour", an air bubble, full of wind, easily broken and dissipated, and soon vanishes away; it is like the "wind", noisy and blusterous, full of stir and tumult, and, like that, swiftly passes and sweeps away, and returns not again: this is an address to God; and so some (d) supply it, "O God", or "O Lord, remember", &c. not that forgetfulness is in God, or that he needs to be reminded of anything; but he may seem to forget the frailty of man when he lays his hand heavy on him; and may be said to be mindful of it when he mercifully takes it off: what Job here prays for, the Lord often does, as he did with respect to the Israelites, Psalm 78:39,

mine eye shall no more see good: meaning not spiritual and eternal good, here and hereafter; he knew he should, after this life, see his living Redeemer even with the eyes of his body, when raised again; that he should see him as he is, not through a glass, darkly, but face to face, in all his glory; and that for himself, and not another, and even see and enjoy things he had never seen before: but his sense is, that he should see or enjoy no more temporal good; either in this world, being without hope of any, or in the grave, whither he was going and would shortly be; and therefore entreats that some mercy might be shown him while he lived; to which sense the following words incline.

(c) "hali us", Cocceius, Michaelis. (d) So Beza, Vatablus, Drusius, Michaelis.

Geneva Study Bible

O remember that my life is wind: mine eye shall no more see good.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

7. This feeling of the hopeless brevity of his life overwhelms the sufferer, and he turns in supplication to God, beseeching Him, the Everlasting, to think how swiftly his mortal life passes, cf. Psalm 102:11.

see good] i. e. happiness or prosperity. He means in this life; but then the state of the dead, though not extinction, was not to be called life, it was but a dreary, dreamy shadow of life, having no fellowship with the living, whether men or God; cf. ch. Job 10:21 seq.; Psalm 6:5; Ecclesiastes 9:5 seq.; Isaiah 38:18.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 7. - O remember that my life is wind! (comp. Psalm 78:39). The wind is an image of all that is vain, shifting, unstable, ready to pass away (Job 6:36; Proverbs 11:29; Ecclesiastes 5:16; Isaiah 26:18; Isaiah 41:9; Jeremiah 5:13, etc.). Mine eye shall no more see good. Another protest against the hopes flint Eliphaz has held out (see the comment on ver. 6; and setup, Job 9:25). Job is still speaking of this life only, and not touching the question of another. Job 7:7

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

7 Remember that my life is a breath,

That my eye will never again look on prosperity.

8 The eye that looketh upon me seeth me no more;

Thine eyes look for me, - I am no more!

9 The clouds are vanished and passed away,

So he that goeth down to Shel cometh not up.

10 He returneth no more to his house,

And his place knoweth him no more.

11 Therefore I will not curb my mouth;

I will speak in the anguish of my spirit;

I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.

We see good, i.e., prosperity and joy, only in the present life. It ends with death. שׁוּב with ל infin. is a synonym of הוסיף, Job 20:9. No eye (עין femin.) which now sees me (prop. eye of my seer, as Genesis 16:13, comp. Job 20:7; Psalm 31:12, for ראני, Isaiah 29:15, or ראני, Isaiah 47:10; according to another reading, ראי: no eye of seeing, i.e., no eye with the power of seeing, from ראי, vision) sees me again, even if thy eyes should be directed towards me to help me; my life is gone, so that I can no more be the subject of help. For from Shel there is no return, no resurrection (comp. Psalm 103:16 for the expression); therefore will I at least give free course to my thoughts and feelings (comp. Psalm 77:4; Isaiah 38:15, for the expression). The גּם, Job 7:11, is the so-called גם talionis; the parallels cited by Michalis are to the point, Ezekiel 16:43; Malachi 2:9; Psalm 52:7. Here we first meet with the name of the lower world; and in the book of Job we learn the ancient Israelitish conception of it more exactly than anywhere else. We have here only to do with the name in connection with the grammatical exposition. שׁאול (usually gen. fem.) is now almost universally derived from שׁאל equals שׁעל, to be hollow, to be deepened; and aptly so, for they imagined the Sheôl as under ground, as Numbers 16:30, Numbers 16:33 alone shows, on which account even here, as from Genesis 37:35 onwards, שׁאולה ירד is everywhere used. It is, however, open to question whether this derivation is correct: at least passages like Isaiah 5:14; Habakkuk 2:5; Proverbs 30:15., show that in the later usage of the language, שׁאל, to demand, was thought of in connection with it; derived from which Sheôl signifies (1) the appointed inevitable and inexorable demanding of everything earthly (an infinitive noun like אלוהּ, פּקוד); (2) conceived of as space, the place of shadowy duration whither everything on earth is demanded; (3) conceived of according to its nature, the divinely appointed fury which gathers in and engulfs everything on the earth. Job knows nothing of a demanding back, a redemption from Sheôl.