Job 10
Big idea: A speech addressed entirely to God, and its argument is made from craftsmanship: you made me deliberately, out of milk and cheese and skin and bones, and granted me life and loving kindness — so why destroy the work of your own hands?
The making language here is answered, in its own way, by the whirlwind's questions about who made everything else.
10:1–12 — Your hands have framed me
The decision is announced before the speech: my soul is weary of my life; I will give free course to my complaint; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul. And the request to God is entirely procedural: do not condemn me — show me why you contend with me. He wants the charge, not the acquittal.
1 “My soul is weary of my life. I will give free course to my complaint. I will speak in the bitterness of my soul. 2 I will tell God, ‘Do not condemn me. Show me why you contend with me. 3 Is it good to you that you should oppress, that you should despise the work of your hands, and smile on the counsel of the wicked? 4 Do you have eyes of flesh? Or do you see as man sees? 5 Are your days as the days of mortals, or your years as man’s years, 6 that you inquire after my iniquity, and search after my sin? 7 Although you know that I am not wicked, there is no one who can deliver out of your hand. 8 “‘Your hands have framed me and fashioned me altogether, yet you destroy me. 9 Remember, I beg you, that you have fashioned me as clay. Will you bring me into dust again? 10 Haven’t you poured me out like milk, and curdled me like cheese? 11 You have clothed me with skin and flesh, and knit me together with bones and sinews. 12 You have granted me life and loving kindness. Your visitation has preserved my spirit.
10:13–22 — Let me alone, that I may find a little comfort
The suspicion is that the kindness and the intention were never the same thing: yet you hid these things in your heart; I know that this is with you. If I sin, then you watch me and will not acquit me of my iniquity. If I am wicked, woe to me; and if I am righteous, I still will not lift up my head, being filled with disgrace and conscious of my affliction. The double bind is stated as a rule, not a mood: neither verdict improves his situation.
13 Yet you hid these things in your heart. I know that this is with you: 14 if I sin, then you mark me. You will not acquit me from my iniquity. 15 If I am wicked, woe to me. If I am righteous, I still will not lift up my head, being filled with disgrace, and conscious of my affliction. 16 If my head is held high, you hunt me like a lion. Again you show yourself powerful to me. 17 You renew your witnesses against me, and increase your indignation on me. Changes and warfare are with me. 18 “‘Why, then, have you brought me out of the womb? I wish I had given up the spirit, and no eye had seen me. 19 I should have been as though I had not been. I should have been carried from the womb to the grave. 20 Aren’t my days few? Stop! Leave me alone, that I may find a little comfort, 21 before I go where I will not return from, to the land of darkness and of the shadow of death; 22 the land dark as midnight, of the shadow of death, without any order, where the light is as midnight.’”
Scripture text: World English Bible (public domain).