Job Chapter 7



"Is there not an appointed time to man upon earth?" (Job 7). There he has another ground; his trial was so prolonged. It was not merely a tremendous trial, which is usually very brief in this world. If people have great agony, say in the foot or the head - well, very often they become insensible if it is the head; and if it is the foot no doubt it is very trying, but it passes; the paroxysm passes. 'But how is it that I from head to foot am nothing but a mass of sores, and inwardly suffering the deepest agony? Oh that God had taken it away; that God had terminated this terrible suffering.' "As a servant earnestly desireth the shadow" - of the evening, when he has done his work - "and as an hireling looketh for the reward of his work; so am I made to possess months of vanity, and wearisome nights are appointed to me." They had each day their relaxation from labour; it may be hard labour, but still they had their night of ease and rest. 'But I have nothing day or night, it is all the same terrible unremitting suffering.' "When I lie down, I say, When shall I arise, and the night be gone? and I am full of tossings to and fro until the dawning of the day."

Sometimes we have a little of that experience; but how little it is compared with Job's; and how very quickly it gives place. But God was putting him into the furnace in order that he might come out purer than ever. "My flesh is clothed with worms." Think of that; not merely with woollen or linen - "My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust; my skin is broken, and become loathsome. My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, and are spent without hope." That is, it was always something coming just like the rapid process with which a weaver passes his shuttle every moment. "Oh, remember that my life is wind; mine eye shall no more see good. The eye of him that hath seen me shall see me no more; thine eyes are upon me and I am not. As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away" - that is what he compared himself to - "so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more" - that is what he wanted, that it should terminate. "He shall return no more to his house, neither shall his place know him any more. 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. Am I a sea, or a whale" - a sea monster - "that thou settest a watch over me? When I say, my bed shall comfort me, my couch shall ease my complaint; then thou scarest me with dreams, and terrifiest me through visions; so that my soul chooseth strangling, and death rather than my life." It is not that he would have done it, but that is what would have terminated his suffering. That is what the merely natural spirit would have done - terminated it violently. Oh, no; he had no thought of such a thing. He was under the hand of God, but he begs God's hand to close it. "I would not live alway; let me alone; for my days are vanity."

And he uses that very remarkable expression which we find in two other parts of the Old Testament: "What is man, that thou shouldest magnify him? and that thou shouldest set thine heart upon him?" It is very different here from what it is in the 8th Psalm, and it is sensibly different from what it is in Psalm 144. "What is man?" If you look at man without Christ there is nothing very wonderful to talk about; but when you look at Christ there is the most wonderful thing of all, both in the depth of His humiliation and the height of His exalted glory. Well, that is Psalm 8. But here it is man under the discipline of God; under the moral government of God. 'Oh,' he says, 'what is man, to be under such a tremendous government as this? If I were a sea I should not feel it; and if I were a big whale, well, I might perhaps endure more than I can now; but what is man?' - poor, sensitive man; poor man full of his nerves, and full of his feeling, of mind, too, embittered by his outward trial? 'Oh!' he said, 'terminate it I terminate it!"

Well, in the 144th Psalm there is another thing. Looking for the kingdom to be brought in by divine power, the Psalmist says, "What is man?" Man stands in the way. There the nations are, but what are they? Execute judgment upon them, put them down with a high hand. That is the way in which it is looked at. So that you see this - "man" in all the blessedness of Christ, then, "man" in all the sufferings of Job, and again, "man" in all the worthlessness of the nation; thus are three different comparisons given us in these three places. "How long wilt thou not depart from me, nor let me alone till I swallow down my spittle?" - i.e., to get a moment to breath. "I have sinned" - or, "If I have sinned" I should think to be the real sense of the passage - "What shall I do unto thee," "O thou" - not exactly "Preserver" but "Observer?" It is well to take notice of these errors where they are more particularly flagrant - "O thou Observer!" For he was perfectly conscious that God had His eye upon him all the time - perfectly conscious of that. Still he was not in the presence of God in the way that he afterwards entered it, when he knew himself, and when he knew God better, as he learnt through this.

This is what we have the privilege of learning in a very much more simple and blessed manner. "If I have sinned, what shall I do unto thee, O thou Observer of men? why hast thou set me as a mark against thee, so that I am a burden to myself? And why dost thou not pardon my transgression?" - he had confidence in God, but he could not understand what God somehow or another had against him, what he was not conscious of himself. 'Oh,' he said, 'why not pardon it, if there be that of which I am not conscious' - "and take away mine iniquity? for now I shall sleep in the dust; and thou shalt seek me in the morning, but I shall not be."