Your hands fashioned and made me, and now you have destroyed me altogether.
Job stops arguing with his friends and appeals to God. He points to the hands that formed him, and asks how those same hands can now be breaking him. Commentators read this cry from two sides. It shows real insight into how God makes us. It is also a complaint that says more than Job had any right to say.
The plea of a made man
Job's conscience was clear, and he says so to God. One writer hears an unspoken "after all the love You have shown me" behind that appeal, and shows how Job's frailty becomes part of the plea.
William KellyJob had a perfectly good conscience, and so he says, "You know that I am not wicked." That he would say to God, and it was perfectly true. His trouble was not wickedness. It was his own satisfaction in that poor reflection of righteousness which the best of men can have here below in themselves. That is no ground at all to stand on before God. "Your hands fashioned and made me, and now You destroy me" — after all the love You have shown me. "Remember that You have made me like clay." He had not made him an angel. He had not made him someone above this kind of suffering.
The intricacy Job overlooked
The same verse that fuels the complaint holds the answer to it. If the body God built is past our understanding, His dealings will be too.
Leslie M. GrantGod's hand was heavy on Job, and no one could deliver Job from that hand. In fact God's hand was working blessing for Job that he did not then understand. It was good for Job to stay in God's hand, even when that hand felt hard. "Your hands have made me and fashioned me, an intricate unity" (v.8)… none of us can understand how the eye, the ear, the tongue, the brain and the heart work in such an amazing way. Nor can we understand how they all act in perfect unison. For this is God's work, much beyond our understanding. So we should expect God to do things with us that are higher than we can understand.
(Grant follows an older translation, which reads "an intricate unity" here; the ESV does not use that phrase.)
Made by God, therefore answerable to God
The first line of the verse says where a human being comes from. One writer draws out what follows from that.
Truth & TestimonyLet God be true, and every man a liar. Let me study the circulatory system, plasma, the nervous system, the brain, the eye or any other part of the body … "give me understanding …" Then I will know that God created me. I will know that I am a responsible intelligent human being answerable to Him.
Where the appeal turns into self-defence
Job's sense of his own uprightness was real, but it hardened. One writer lists this verse among the places where that happens.
J. N. DarbyBut these spiritual affections in Job did not stop him from turning this sense of integrity into a robe of self-righteousness. That robe hid God from him, and even hid him from himself. He declares himself to be more righteous than God (Job 10:7-8; 16:14-17; 23:11-13; 27:2-6).
So how should we read words like these? The book is God's word. The speeches inside it record what men said.
William KellyWe must remember that the book of Job is inspired. Even so, it would be a great mistake to accept that the speeches are inspired… part of the value of the book is that we have the mistakes of the speakers. Every one of the three friends was very much mistaken in what he said, and Job himself also.
Despair still spoken to God
The wound here is not in Job's body but in his confidence in God's goodness. Notice, though, whom he turns to as he says it.
Samuel RidoutBodily suffering is not what has wrung this bitter cry from him. He has lost, or is in danger of losing, faith in God's goodness… He is weary of life, and might as well pour out all his thoughts against God… he pours out all those thoughts before the eye of God. May not this very unrestrained misery suggest the root of faith in his heart? He will at least tell God to His face that he doubts Him.
Summary
- Made by those hands. Job argues from his own making. God shaped him as clay, not as an angel, so the frail thing under God's hand is God's own handiwork.
- Held by those hands. The hand Job could not escape felt heavy, yet it was working blessing he could not yet see.
- Hands past explaining. No one can explain how eye, ear and heart work together. God's dealings with you will run higher than your understanding too.
- Misjudging those hands. A clear conscience is not a standing before God. Job's sense of integrity hardened until he called himself more righteous than God. The book records the speeches as mistakes, not as doctrine.
- Still speaking to those hands. Job tells God to His face that he doubts Him. He takes his misery nowhere else, and that is where faith is still alive.