CHAPTER 7 Dec. 5 
Job Continues His Response to Eliphaz
Isn’t a man forced to labour on earth? Aren’t his days like the days of a hired hand? 2As a servant who earnestly desires the shadow, as a hireling who looks for his wages, 3so am I made to possess months of misery, wearisome nights are appointed to me. 4When I lie down, I say, ‘When shall I arise, and the night be gone?’ I toss and turn until the dawning of the day. 5My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust. My skin closes up, and breaks out afresh. 6My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, and are spent without hope. 7Oh remember that my life is a breath. My eye shall no more see good. 8The eye of him who sees me shall see me no more. Your eyes shall be on me, but I shall not be. 9As the cloud is consumed and vanishes away, so he who goes down to Sheol shall come up no more. 10He shall return no more to his house, neither shall his place know him any more. 11Therefore I will not keep silent. I will speak in the anguish of my spirit, I will complain in the bitterness of my soul. 12Am I a sea, or a sea monster, that You put a guard over me? 13When I say, ‘My bed shall comfort me. My couch shall ease my complaint’; 14then You scare me with dreams, and terrify me through visions: 15so that my soul chooses strangling, death rather than to see my bones. 16I loathe my life. I don’t want to live forever. Leave me alone, for my days are but a breath. 17What is man, that You should magnify him, that You should set Your mind on him, 18that You should visit him every morning, and test him every moment? 19How long will You not look away from me, nor leave me alone until I swallow down my spittle? 20If I have sinned, what do I do to You, You watcher of men? Why have You set me as an archer’s target for You, so that I am a burden to myself? 21Why do You not pardon my disobedience, and take away my iniquity? For now shall I lie down in the dust. You will seek me diligently, but I shall not be.

Commentary

7:17 That You should set Your mind on him-  The Hebrew for ‘to set the mind on’ is also translated “consider” in 2:3, where God asks the ‘satan’ whether he has “considered My servant Job..?”. Thus Job sees God as considering him, whilst we are told earlier that satan / the adversary was told to do this. Thus whoever the ‘satan’ or adversary figure was, Job saw this being as ultimately representing God.
7:18 Test him every moment- God’s level of involvement in our lives is amazing, considering His greatness and our smallness.
7:20,21 Job makes several wrong statements here. In his depression, he wonders why God should be so worried about sin, seeing He is so great. But this is exactly the point- God despite His greatness is so highly sensitive to human behaviour. Job takes comfort in his idea that death will as it were hide him from God (:21), and as he doesn’t want to live for ever (:16), therefore, Job thinks, he will not. But he totally underestimated God’s grace, His desire for us, and to live eternally with us. These things were said by Job in depression and in the grip of suicidal desires (:15); yet at the end, God doesn’t rebuke Job but rather justifies him (42:7). This shows the extent to which God does accept depression as a state which leads to a person saying things which aren’t reflective of the real person, the one whom God sees, loves and judges. It also reflects the extent of the righteousness which God imputes to those He loves.