The eye of him who sees me will behold me no more; while your eyes are on me, I shall be gone.
Job is diseased, in pain, and sure that his life is almost over. He tells God that soon no eye will find him — but is that faith speaking, or despair?
Where the words fall in Job's answer
Job has been answering his friends. Now he turns and speaks to God about how short his life is. One writer maps the whole reply:
Samuel RidoutJob's reply has two general features, one for each of the two chapters given to it (Job 6, 7). In chapter 6 he speaks mainly to the friends. In the second half of the following chapter he speaks to God... (5) The brevity of life (Job 7:1-11). (6) God his enemy (verses 12-19). (7) The appeal in view of sin (verses 20, 21).
The picture behind the words
The first eye in the verse is a human one. Job's body was already breaking down, and his days were racing past:
Samuel RidoutAlready the signs of the grave are on him, the worm and the clod. Any slight healing of his sores is only the signal for a fresh, sickening outbreak. His painful days pass like the swift passing of the shuttle in the weaver's loom. Soon they will see him no more, and his life will melt away like a cloud in the blue sky.
Job spoke of his suffering in a way that should have moved anyone sitting with him:
F. B. HoleHe felt his suffering deeply himself, and so expressed it in a moving way. His life had been "months of emptiness" and "nights of misery." Just as a servant or hired worker longed for the shadow of evening and for his wages, he was longing for the end. His days fled away, and he was hopeless. His friends should have been more filled with compassion.
God's eyes on him — and no comfort in it
The second half of the verse is the strangest part. Job knows God is looking at him, and instead of resting in that, he argues with God about it:
The Christian's FriendJob himself was in the dark about these things. In the chapter referred to he even shows how ready he was to argue with God, and almost accuse Him. Yet he knew that God's eyes were upon him (v. 8), that He was with him (v. 19), and that He had set His heart upon man (v. 17)... In chapter 7 he knew he had sinned (v. 20), and tasted great bitterness, despite his sense of the Lord's nearness. That sense only added to his distress.
Job feels God's eyes on him as a guard set over something dangerous. One writer names the mistake in that:
Samuel RidoutGod is his enemy, watching him as if he were the tossing sea, ready to break past its limits, or some sea monster to 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 God was actually doing
The reader of the book knows something Job does not know while he speaks. The pressure was not destruction but refining:
William KellySometimes we have a little of that experience. But how little it is next to Job's, and how quickly it passes. But God was putting him into the furnace so that he might come out purer than ever.
The eye that would see after all
Job says here that no eye will find him again. Later in the book he says the opposite, and speaks of seeing for himself:
William KellyJob was to be raised and live again, and to live in a glorious way, in power and incorruption. "Whom I shall see for myself." He was not in the least afraid of the Lord. He loved to think of Him, and looked for His intervention with certainty. "And my eyes shall behold, and not another."
Job keeps talking and defending himself until he actually sees God:
The Christian's FriendNot until chapter 40 does Job discover that he is vile and stop speaking. It is then that he begins to understand what man is... Not until he says, "now my eye sees you," does he say, "therefore I despise myself."
Summary
- Seen. Job's complaint is that soon no human eye will find him — his days run out like a shuttle and dissolve like a cloud.
- Watched. He knows God's eyes are on him, but in his pain that nearness increases his distress instead of easing it.
- Misjudged. Job treats the God who is watching as an enemy guarding a monster, when in fact he is speaking of his best Friend.
- Refined. What felt like destruction was a furnace, meant to bring him out purer than before.
- Beholding. Job says here that no eye will see him again. Later he says his own eyes will see God — and when that sight comes, he stops defending himself.