How long will you not look away from me, nor leave me alone till I swallow my spit?
Job is speaking straight to God, and he asks for the smallest mercy imaginable — not healing, not answers, just enough time to swallow. Behind that request is a belief: God's attention has become the pressure crushing him, and Job wants it turned away.
The Smallest Request a Sufferer Can Make
Job is not asking for much, and that is what makes the line so heavy:
Samuel RidoutHe 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.
Another writer puts the phrase in plain words, then shows what Job still had to learn:
William Kelly"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.
The One He Pushes Away
Job describes a watcher he cannot escape. One writer lists what Job charges God with, then names the relationship Job has forgotten:
Samuel RidoutGod 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!
"What Is Man?" in a Different Key
Job is not the only one who asks what man is, that God should take such notice of him. The same question comes up in two psalms, and there the answer is very different:
William KellyPsalm 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.
The Answer to "How Long?"
Job's speech is a reply to his friend Eliphaz, but he turns it on God. He assumes the attention is pointless and the testing endless, and one writer answers both halves of that:
Leslie M. GrantThough 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.
The Eye Job Wanted Turned Away
What Job begs God to withdraw is the very thing a believer later learns to love. The unbroken gaze is not spying; it is interest:
Numerical Bible NotesHis 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!
God did not grant this prayer, and both Job and everyone who has read his story gained by the refusal:
W. W. FeredayPoor 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!
Summary
- Pressure. Job asks only for a pause long enough to swallow — the plea of a man who can find no relief even in God.
- Misread. He speaks as if God were an enemy hunting him, when he is in fact accusing his best Friend.
- Purpose. God does think every believer worth this much attention. The testing is interest, not spite.
- Timing. "How long?" felt endless to Job. But God knows just how long the trial must last to reach His own ends.
- Gain. The eye Job begged God to turn away is the eye that never leaves the righteous. God did not answer that prayer, and that is how Job — and we — came to know Him better.