Job 7:12–19

The word tannin, in Genesis 1:21; Job 7:12; Ezekiel 32:2, and the Greek word kētos in Matthew 12:40, refer to any sea monsters, without defining any particular one. In the King James Version the Hebrew word tannin is also translated "dragon," "sea monster," and "serpent."

When a man has served out his time as a soldier or a slave, may he not go free? It was his grief that he could not, after days and nights of hopeless misery beyond words. Yet he was only a wind or a cloud. As he thought of it, he had to speak again in his anguish. Was he a sea, or a sea monster, so out of control that he got no rest, not even at night, from horrors bad enough to make him prefer strangling — any death — to living on with bones like his?

God is his enemy, watching him as if he were the tossing sea, ready to burst past its limits, or some monster of the waters to be caught and killed. Day and night His hand was heavy upon him. Poor sufferer! And he was attributing it to his best Friend!

If we give way to our feelings, the effect will always be the same: we will not be able to hold our tongues. Sober wisdom and concern for the truth will teach us to hold back our words, but our feelings will lead us to speak without thinking. "Am I the sea," Job asks — that is, a huge, uncontrolled creature, or simply a sea serpent, so set on its own way that Job's friends think they must impose their authority on him.

But in the second part Job turned to God, and began to speak to Him with his bitter complaint. He realized his own littleness. He was not something great, like a sea or a sea monster.

What is the secret of the unhappiness and restlessness of many a saint? A hankering after rest here. So God must discipline and train that soul. He may allow some circumstance to expose the real state of the heart, by touching the very thing the will is set on. Circumstances would not trouble us if they did not find something in us contrary to God; they would pass by like the wind. God deals with what hinders communion in us, and what keeps us from seeking rest in Him alone. His discipline is the constant, tireless work of love, which does not rest now, so that we may enter into His rest.

These were mostly divans, low raised seats around the room. They served for reclining on in the day and for sleeping on at night, which explains why they are often called 'beds.'

Each day they got relief from their work. The work may have been hard, but they still had their night of ease and rest. "But I have nothing day or night. It is all the same terrible suffering that never lets up."

Job builds on the feeling he has expressed. He says he will not restrain his mouth. He will speak in the anguish of his spirit and complain in the bitterness of his soul (v.11). If we give way to our feelings, the effects will always be this way: we shall not be able to restrain our mouths. Sober wisdom and care for the truth will teach us to hold our words back. Our feelings will lead us to speak without thinking.

When he looked for comfort in lying down in his bed, he says they "scare me with dreams and terrify me with visions." He refers to the vision Eliphaz claimed to have had. Job thought it was not for his comfort, but to frighten him. That moved him all the more to choose to die.

Job's piety made him own that God not only must be, but was, concerned in all these calamities; and he was right so far. Job did not blame the Sabeans or the Chaldeans, the lightning, the storm, or the disease. He looked far beyond these secondary causes. He was right to bring God into the trouble. But he was wrong, as we find at the end. He supposed either that there was nothing to correct in his soul, or that God could be anything other than gracious while faithful to him.

The real secret of all Job's false reasoning is that he did not understand the character of God, or the purpose of all His dealings. He did not see that God was testing him. He did not see that God was behind the scenes, using various agents to accomplish His wise and gracious ends. Even Satan himself was a mere instrument in the hand of God.

God knew what His servant Job needed, and Himself brings forward his case and sets all in movement. Satan is only an instrument — an ignorant though clever instrument — to bring about God's purposes of grace. For Job's good, God lets him have his way up to a point. The aim is to bring Job to know his own heart, and so to a deeper ground of practical relationship with God.

When all is quiet at last, God can speak. Paul and Silas: "about midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them" (Acts 16:25). Of King Ahasuerus we read: "On that night the king could not sleep" (Esther 6:1). Then he learned things he had ignored before, and so he set matters right. So insomnia, or sleeplessness, can sometimes be a hidden blessing. In any case it is always a good habit when we suffer from sleeplessness to praise and pray.

But in the second part Job clearly turned toward God, and began to address Him with his bitter complaint. He realised his own littleness. He was not something great, like a sea or a sea-monster. He cries out that his very nights are a torment. They are filled with dreams and visions of terror which, he feels, come to him from God. He loathes his present life and tells God that he wants to die.

When he looked for comfort in lying down in his bed, he says they "scare me with dreams and terrify me with visions." He refers to the vision Eliphaz claimed to have had. Job considered it was not for his comfort, but to frighten him. This moved him all the more to choose to die. So he declares bitterly, "I loathe my life; I would not live forever. Leave me alone, for my days are a breath." We can understand that Job would prefer to be left alone rather than have the cold criticism of his friends.

Satan used a misapplication of truth in the speeches of Job's friends. Job 6 shows that this gave Job a terrible shaking. He said, "Oh that my vexation were weighed, and all my calamity laid in the balances! For then it would be heavier than the sand of the sea." "For the arrows of the Almighty are in me; my spirit drinks their poison; the terrors of God are arrayed against me." This was a great mistake. They were the arrows of Satan. God was not against Job. If Job had only known it, God was for him.

How great is the distress of soul when Satan can insinuate that God is against the believer! How he will magnify every trial, every affliction!

Some passages link dreams with trifles and empty things. Even so, the Scriptures give abundant evidence that God often made His mind known to people through dreams. He did this not only with those who obeyed Him, but also with those outside Israel. God said that He would instruct His prophets in dreams. He also used dreams in the case of Nebuchadnezzar and of Daniel, to reveal His will and purpose concerning the future.

Elihu speaks of two different ways in which God deals with man. The first is in a vision of the night, in a dream. When there was no Bible, no written revelation of God, God spoke to man individually by dreams and visions. He does not do so any longer. We now have His completed Word, in which He makes His will known to us. God deals with man this way for a purpose. It is to draw him back from an evil way and to warn him. Then he may leave the pride he nourishes in his heart. It keeps his soul from the pit and his life from perishing by the sword.

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 so that he might come out purer than ever. He was under the hand of God, but he begs God's hand to bring it to an end.

Was he a sea, or a sea-monster, so uncontrollable that he must be allowed no relief, not even at night? The horrors were enough to make him prefer strangling — any death — rather than that such bones as his should live on. What was mortal man, that God should make so much of him, and try him as he was tried without a break?

When he looked for comfort in lying down in his bed, then he says, "You scare me with dreams and terrify me with visions." He refers to the vision Eliphaz claimed to have had. Job took it as meant not for his comfort but to frighten him, and this moved him all the more to choose to die.

Day gave him no pleasure, night no rest; he prefers death to life, which he "loathes." (vv. 15, 16.) Yet he is unbroken. In prosperity his goodness is a basis for self-satisfaction, and now in adversity — sent to remove this — he complains! Such is man under instruction. Not until he says, "now my eye sees you," does he say, "therefore I despise myself."

He gives us a history of his troubles, with disappointment in his friends added to the list. He is occupied with defending himself, though at the same time only the more convinced that his days are worthless, saying, "My soul chooses strangling and death rather than life." What lessons of anguish one has to learn before one sees the wisdom of giving up self! How tormented the soul is by one suggestion after another — suggestions that could never reach or trouble it except for the amount of self that exists. It is the possibility that a charge might be true which makes it painful and irritating.

There was no question of Job's end. There was no question that God would receive him, and He had already received him in spirit. So there was no fear of death in Job; he looked at it and even desired it. But that would spoil the great lesson. God would allow him to be tried thoroughly, but would not allow Satan so to torment him as to end his life.

The first thought after waking to a full sense of one's misery, and the most bitter one, is to curse one's day. Where God is not known, that leads to suicide. But where God is known, as in Job's case, it is the beginning of healthy action — not in the discontent it uncovers, but because the sense of death, of utter removal from everything, is known and felt... Death, because of such present misery, is preferred. To live in it has no attraction for the heart. This Job feels. He does not know that God is seeking to make him a witness of dependence on Himself against Satan. But this is God's way. Discipline may have the effect of making us feel that death is preferable to life, but it is working out God's purpose.

In the second part Job turned Godward, and began to address Him with his bitter complaint. He realized his own littleness. He was not something great, like a sea or a sea-monster. In verses 13-16 he cries out that even his nights are a torment, with dreams and visions of terror which, he feels, come to him from God. He loathes his present life and tells God that he wants to die.

God was putting him into the furnace so that he might come out purer than ever... "My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, and are spent without hope." It was always something coming, just like the rapid way a weaver passes his shuttle every moment. "Oh, remember that my life is wind; my eye shall no more see good."... "As the cloud is consumed and vanishes away" — that is what he compared himself to. "So he who goes down to the grave shall come up no more" — that is what he wanted, that it should end... "My soul chooses strangling, and death rather than my life." It is not that he would have done it, but that is what would have ended his suffering... He had no thought of such a thing. He was under the hand of God, but he begs God's hand to close it.

Poor, suffering, despairing Job! To think of Him whose love had been so fully shown in the past as his enemy, and to pray to Him, "Let me alone," was indeed horrible despondency. And if he has sinned, why does not God pardon and take away his iniquity? But this is not confession of sin. It is a different thing when he finally cries out, "Behold I am vile, I abhor myself."

Job himself was in the dark about these things. He knew God's eyes were on him, that He was with him, and that He had set His heart on man — and yet he was ready to argue with God, almost to accuse Him. Day gave him no pleasure, night no rest; he prefers death to the life he "loathes" (vv. 15, 16). Yet he is unbroken. In prosperity his goodness was a basis for self-satisfaction, and now in adversity — sent to remove this — he complains! Such is man under instruction. Not until he says, "My eye sees you," does he say, "Therefore I abhor myself."

God is his enemy, watching as if he were the tossing sea ready to overleap its bounds, or some monster of the waters to be captured and destroyed. Day and night His hand was heavy on him... Poor sufferer! And he was attributing it to his best Friend!

He was tired of life. That was not a feeling of faith. There is very often much more faith in being willing to live than in wishing to die... But once we know the Saviour, we may wince under the trial we face in this world. Elijah did, and he wished to die, wished to get out of the trial — certainly a most unbelieving wish... Death to a believer is gain, but still we ought not to wish for that gain until the Lord's time for it comes. We ought to want to do His will; that is the only right wish for a saint.

Can you not say, with the hymn, "I would not live always"? We are to wait here and serve Him for a time. But if the Lord Jesus does not come soon, the brightest thing for us is to be taken to be with Him, to be "absent from the body" and at home with the Lord.

Job says this in a complaining, badly-behaved spirit: Why does the LORD take such notice of me, and make such a trouble about me? Why does He not depart from me, or let me alone until I swallow down my spittle? Why should the LORD think so much of me, and not cut me off?

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 would not feel it. If I were a big whale, I might endure more than I can now. But what is man?" — poor, sensitive man, full of his nerves and his feelings, his mind embittered by his outward trial. "Oh!" he said, "end it! end it!"

Scripture asks three times, "What is man?" Job asks it (chapter 7), the remnant asks it in Psalm 144, and the Spirit of Christ asks it in Psalm 8. Job asks it because of God's care over such an insignificant thing as he was. He exclaims, "What is man?" He says, in effect, "Why should You think of me, consider me, a poor worm?" That is what man is. Then the remnant, smarting at the hands of their enemies, ask, "What is man?" ... But in Psalm 8 it is the Spirit of Christ who asks, "What is man?" And the answer is JESUS, the Man according to the whole counsel of God.

If things had stopped there, the experience would probably have harmed Job. He might have said with self-satisfaction that he had stood true to God in good times and in suffering. Chapter 29 makes it plain that a weed of self-satisfaction was already growing in him. He himself probably did not see it, but it was plain enough to the holy eye of God. So God went on with the work at the point where the enemy had to give it up.

The interest of God in the individual soul, though so hard for Job to explain at that moment, is most precious. What greater proof could we have of its reality than the book we are speaking about? Think of it: one of the largest books of the Bible is taken up entirely with the story of God's dealings with one soul — and a man who was not even of Abraham's line! Such was God's interest in His servant that He did not "look away" from him, nor "let him alone," despite his prayer. He went forward with His gracious work until it was finished, and the full blessing of it had been reaped.

Job, with all his outward perfection, had not yet seen God as he was to see Him... How blessed, then, when we have seen Him indeed, to know that every step we take in the way is a matter of concern to Him! — that there is not an hour of the day but He has some thought as to how we should spend it!

Not until chapter 40 does Job discover he is vile, and stop speaking. It is then he begins to enter into what man is... In good times his goodness gave him a basis for self-satisfaction. Now in trouble — sent to remove this — he complains! Such is man under instruction. Not until he says, "My eye sees You," does he say, "Therefore I despise myself."

In Job 7 it is: "What is man, that You should magnify him? and that You should set Your heart on him?" He says this in a complaining, bad spirit: Why does the LORD take such notice of me, and make such a trouble about me? Why does He not depart from me, or let me alone till I swallow my spittle? Why should the LORD think so much of me, and not cut me off?

What was mortal man, that God should make so much of him and test him without a break? Suppose he had sinned — why set him up as a target until he passed away in sorrow?

God let the malicious adversary strip him of his possessions, family, and even his health. The adversary then had to leave the case, completely baffled. Job kept his integrity through all his suffering. But if things had stopped there, the experience would probably have harmed Job. He might have grown self-satisfied, saying that he had stood true to God in good times and bad. Chapter twenty-nine makes it plain that a weed of self-satisfaction was already growing inside him. He probably did not know it was there, but God's holy eye saw it clearly. God, therefore, took up the work at the point where the enemy had to abandon it. His aim was to rid His servant of that harmful weed, and so do him good in the end.

The interest of God in the individual soul, though so puzzling to Job at that moment, is most precious. What greater proof of it could we have than this book? Think of one of the largest books of the Bible given entirely to God's dealings with one soul — a man who was not even a descendant of Abraham! God cared so much for His servant that He would not "look away" from him or "let him alone," despite his prayer. He carried His gracious work forward until He had finished it, and Job had reaped its full blessing.

His interest is the first thing to consider: "He never withdraws His eyes from the righteous." Yet in his distress even a Job could feel this as a painful trial rather than a gain… Job, for all his outward perfection, had not yet seen God as he was to see Him… How blessed it is, once we have truly seen Him, to know that every step we take matters to Him! For every hour of the day He has a thought about how we should spend it.

If the reader will turn for a moment to Hebrews 12:3-12, he will find much precious instruction on the subject of God's dealings with His people… it presents three distinct ways in which we may meet the chastening of our Father's hand. We may "despise" it, as though His hand and His voice were not in it; we may "faint" under it, as though it were unbearable, and not the precious fruit of His love; or, lastly, we may be "exercised by it," and so reap, in due time, "the peaceable fruits of righteousness."

Psalm 8 and Psalm 144 stand in beautiful contrast to Job's complaining. There a similar question brings out wholly different answers, in and through the Lord Jesus. Yet the Lord entered the glory of Son of Man, set over all things, through infinitely deeper suffering… Job gives way to murmurs and complaints that God should take such notice of man in His daily government. Not so the Lord. He was rejected by all and tasted death for everything, and now we see Him exalted above the heavens.

He asks his question, but in how different a way from the Psalmist: what is poor, puny man, that You should afflict him like this? He is left with hardly a moment to draw a quiet breath — time "to swallow my spit." It is a sad case when a man can find no relief even in God.

"How long will You not look away from me, nor leave me alone till I swallow my spit?" — that is, give me a moment to breathe… Job was fully aware that God had His eye on him all the time — fully aware of that. Still, he was not in God's presence in the way he later entered it. That came when he knew himself, and knew God better, which is what he learned through all this.

God is his enemy, watching him as if he were the tossing sea, ready to break past its limits, or some sea monster that must be caught and destroyed. Day and night His hand was heavy upon him… Poor sufferer! And he was attributing it to his best Friend!

Psalm 8 and Psalm 144 stand in beautiful contrast to Job's complaining. There a similar question is asked, and in and by the Lord Jesus it brings out wholly different answers. Yet the Lord passed into the glory of the Son of man, set over all things, and He passed there through suffering infinitely deeper… Job gives way to murmurs and complaints that God should take such notice of man in His daily rule. Not so the Lord. He was rejected by all, He tasted death for everything, and now we see Him exalted above the heavens.

Though answering Eliphaz, Job now speaks to God directly, and in the same complaining way. Was Job so important that God should spend such time dealing so harshly with him, testing him every moment? (vv.17-18). The real answer to this is, "Yes." God considers every believer important enough to spend time putting him through serious trials of faith. "How long?" (v.19). It seemed too long to Job. But God knows just how long is needed in every case to reach His own ends.

His interest is the first thing to consider: "He does not withdraw His eyes from the righteous." Even a Job, in his time of distress, might find this a painful trial instead of a gain… But Job, for all his outward perfection, had not yet seen God as he would come to see Him. Psalm 139 will in time reveal the whole process by which we are won to delight in His constant attention to us. How blessed it is, once we have truly seen Him, to know that every step we take matters to Him! For every hour of the day He has some thought of how we should spend it!

Poor Job! How much he would have missed, how much the whole family of faith would have missed, if God had taken him at his word!