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Commentary on Job 10 verses 1–7
Here is, I. A passionate resolution to persist in his complaint, Job 10:1. Being daunted with the dread of God's majesty, so that he could not plead his cause with him, he resolves to give himself some ease by giving vent to his resentments. He begins with vehement language: "My soul is weary of my life, weary of this body, and impatient to get clear of it, fallen out with life, and displeased at it, sick of it, and longing for death." Through the weakness of grace he went contrary to the dictates even of nature itself. We should act more like men did we act more like saints. Faith and patience would keep us from being weary of our lives (and cruel to them, as some read it), even when Providence has made them most wearisome to us; for that is to be weary of God's correction. Job, being weary of his life and having ease no other way, resolves to complain, resolves to speak. He will not give vent to his soul by violent hands, but he will give vent to the bitterness of his soul by violent words. Losers think they may have leave to speak; and unbridled passions, as well as unbridled appetites, are apt to think it an excuse for their excursions that they cannot help them: but what have we wisdom and grace for, but to keep the mouth as with a bridle? Job's corruption speaks here, yet grace puts in a word. 1. He will complain, but he will leave his complaint upon himself. He would not impeach God, nor charge him with unrighteousness or unkindness; but, though he knew not particularly the ground of God's controversy with him and the cause of action, yet, in the general, he would suppose it to be in himself and willingly bear all the blame. 2. He will speak, but it shall be the bitterness of his soul that he will express, not his settled judgment. If I speak amiss, it is not I, but sin that dwells in me, not my soul, but its bitterness.
II. A humble petition to God. He will speak, but the first word shall be a prayer, and, as I am willing to understand it, it is a good prayer, Job 10:2. 1. That he might be delivered from the sting of his afflictions, which is sin: "Do not condemn me; do not separate me for ever from thee. Though I lie under the cross, let me not lie under the curse; though I smart by the rod of a Father, let me not be cut off by the sword of a Judge. Thou dost correct me; I will bear that as well as I can; but O do not condemn me!" It is the comfort of those who are in Christ Jesus that, though they are in affliction, there is no condemnation to them, Rom 8:1. Nay, they are chastened of the Lord that they may not be condemned with the world, Co1 11:32. This therefore we should deprecate above any thing else, when we are in affliction. "However thou art pleased to deal with me, Lord, do not condemn me; my friends condemn me, but do not thou." 2. That he might be made acquainted with the true cause of his afflictions, and that is sin too: Lord, show me wherefore thou contendest with me. When God afflicts us he contends with us, and when he contends with us there is always a reason. He is never angry without a cause, though we are; and it is desirable to know what the reason is, that we may repent of, mortify, and forsake the sin for which God has a controversy with us. In enquiring it out, let conscience have leave to do its office and to deal faithfully with us, as Gen 42:21.
III. A peevish expostulation with God concerning his dealings with him. Now he speaks in the bitterness of his soul indeed, not without some ill-natured reflections upon the righteousness of his God.
1.He thinks it unbecoming the goodness of God, and the mercifulness of his nature, to deal so hardly with his creature as to lay upon him more than he can bear (Job 10:3): Is it good unto thee that thou shouldst oppress? No, certainly it is not; what he approves no in men (Lam 3:34-36) he will not do himself. "Lord, in dealing with me, thou seemest to oppress thy subject, to despise thy workmanship, and to countenance thy enemies. Now, Lord, what is the meaning of this? Such is thy nature that this cannot be a pleasure to thee; and such is thy name that it cannot be an honour to thee. Why then dealest thou thus with me? What profit is there in my blood?" Far be it from Job to think that God did him wrong, but he is quite at a loss how to reconcile his providences with his justice, as good men have often been, and must wait until the day shall declare it. Let us therefore now harbour no hard thoughts of God, because we shall then see there was no cause for them.
2.He thinks it unbecoming the infinite knowledge of God to put his prisoner thus upon the rack, as it were, by torture, to extort a confession from him, Job 10:4-6. (1.) He is sure that God does not discover things, nor judge of them, as men do: He has not eyes of flesh (Job 10:4), for he is a Spirit. Eyes of flesh cannot see in the dark, but darkness hides not from God. Eyes of flesh are but in one place at a time, and can see but a little way; but the eyes of the Lord are in every place, and run to and fro through the whole earth. Many things are hidden from eyes of flesh, the most curious and piercing; there is a path which even the vulture's eye has not seen: but nothing is, or can be, hidden from the eye of God, to which all things are naked and open. Eyes of flesh see the outward appearance only, and may be imposed upon by a deceptio visus - an illusion of the senses; but God sees every thing truly. His sight cannot be deceived, for he tries the heart, and is a witness to the thoughts and intents of that. Eyes of flesh discover things gradually, and, when we gain the sight of one thing, we lose the sight of another; but God sees every thing at one view. Eyes of flesh are soon tired, must be closed every night but the keeper of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps, nor does his sight ever decay. God sees not as man sees, that is, he does not judge as man judges, at the best secundum allegata et probata - according to what is alleged and proved, as the thing appears rather than as it is, and too often according to the bias of the affections, passions, prejudices, and interest; but we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth, and that he knows truth, not by information, but by his own inspection. Men discover secret things by search, and examination of witnesses, comparing evidence and giving conjectures upon it, wheedling or forcing the parties concerned to confess; but God needs not any of these ways of discovery: he sees not as man sees. (2.) He is sure that as God is not short-sighted, like man, so he is not short-lived (Job 10:5): "Are thy days as the days of man, few and evil? Do they roll on in succession, or are they subject to change, like the days of man? No, by no means." Men grow wiser by experience and more knowing by daily observation; with them truth is the daughter of time, and therefore they must take time for their searches, and, if one experiment fail, must try another. But it is not so with God; to him nothing is past, nothing future, but every thing present. The days of time, by which the life of man is measured, are nothing to the years of eternity, in which the life of God is wrapped up. (3.) He therefore thinks it strange that God should thus prolong his torture, and continue him under the confinement of this affliction, and neither bring him to a trial nor grant him a release, as if he must take time to enquire after his iniquity and use means to search after his sin, Job 10:6. Not as if Job thought that God did thus torment him that he might find occasion against him; but his dealings with him had such an aspect, which was dishonourable to God, and would tempt men to think him a hard master. "Now, Lord, if thou wilt not consult my comfort, consult thy own honour; do something for thy great name, and do not disgrace the throne of thy glory," Jer 14:21.
3.He thinks it looked like an abuse of his omnipotence to keep a poor prisoner in custody, whom he knew to be innocent, only because there was none that could deliver him out of his hand (Job 10:7): Thou knowest that I am not wicked. He had already owned himself a sinner, and guilty before God; but he here stands to it that he was not wicked, not devoted to sin, not an enemy to God, not a dissembler in his religion, that he had not wickedly departed from his God, Psa 18:21. "But there is none that can deliver out of thy hand, and therefore there is no remedy; I must be content to lie there, waiting thy time, and throwing myself on thy mercy, in submission to thy sovereign will." Here see, (1.) What ought to quiet us under our troubles - that it is to no purpose to contend with Omnipotence. (2.) What will abundantly comfort us - if we are able to appeal to God, as Job here, "Lord, thou knowest that I am not wicked. I cannot say that l am not wanting, or I am not weak; but, through grace, I can say, I am not wicked: thou knowest I am not, for thou knowest I love thee."
“Do you judge things according to human views? May anything hide from your careful examination, as it is hidden from human beings? Are your years few, and do you ignore what was previous to your age? Do you need to make an enquiry and an investigation about what happened to me, in order to understand that I am not impious?” He says these words by bringing forward God as the witness of his righteousness and by demanding the benefit of his infinite benevolence. People, in fact, ask for similar things, and God, in his benevolence, reveals few of them to the many. “But if I have not committed iniquity,” he says, “I know, in my heart, that it is not possible to escape from your will; and if I did not know this by myself, your will which knows human things better than us, would have mastered me.” The blessed Job pronounces all these words by teaching us that in temptation we can only take refuge in God and supplicate that his mercy may spare his creature.
72. Eyes of flesh see not the deeds of the periods of time, save in time, in that both they themselves came out with time to see, and are closed with time, and man's sight follows any deed and does not prevent it, seeing that it but just glimpses at things existing, and sees nothing at all of things to come. Moreover the days and years of men differ from the days and years of Eternity, in that our life, which is begun in time and ended in time, Eternity, whilst it frames it within the boundlessness of its bosom, doth swallow up. And whereas the immensity of the same extends beyond us on this side and on that side, His ‘to be eternally’ spreads without beginning and without end: whereunto neither things gone by are past, nor things still to come, as though they did not appear, are absent; in that He, Who hath it always to be, seeth all things present to His eyes, and whereas He doth not stretch Himself by looking behind and before, He changes with no varieties of sight. And so let him say; Hast thou eyes of flesh? or shalt Thou see as man seeth? Are Thy days as the days of man? Are Thy days as the days of man, that Thou inquirest after mine iniquity, and searchest after my sin? To know that I have done nothing ungodly. As if, humbly inquiring, he said, ‘Wherefore dost Thou search me by scourges in time, when even before time was Thou didst know me perfectly in Thine own self? Wherefore dost Thou make inquest concerning my sins by smiting, whom by the mightiness of Thine eternity Thou didst never but know before Thou fashionedst me?’ The weight of Whose power he immediately goes on to describe, where he adds; And there is none that can deliver out of Thine hand.
73. As if he expressed it in plain words; ‘What is left to Thee, saving to spare, Whose power no man can resist? For in proportion as there is none who might stay Thy visitation by the merits of his own excellence, let Thy pitifulness the more easily obtain from Thee [lit. ‘from Itself.’] to spare.’ But because being conceived in sin, and born in wickedness, we either do evil things of malice, or even in doing good things go wrong out of heedlessness, we have not wherewith the strict Judge may be rendered propitious towards us; but while we are unable to present our work as worthy of His regard, it remains that for the propitiation of His favour we offer to Him His own work.
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SUMMARY
In Job 10:4, the patriarch Job, amidst his profound and inexplicable suffering, poses a deeply rhetorical question to God, challenging the very nature of divine perception and judgment. This verse encapsulates Job's desperate attempt to reconcile his unwavering belief in God's perfect justice and boundless knowledge with the agonizing reality of his own innocent affliction. By asking if God possesses "eyes of flesh" or "sees as man seeth," Job implicitly affirms God's transcendence and infallible judgment, simultaneously highlighting the stark contrast between limited human understanding and the comprehensive, unclouded vision of the Almighty. It is a poignant cry for divine clarity and vindication, rooted in Job's conviction that a perfectly just God would not inflict such suffering without cause or misjudge his innocence.
CONTEXT
EXPOSITION AND ANALYSIS
Key Word Analysis
Verse Breakdown
Literary Devices
Job 10:4 employs several potent Literary Devices to convey its profound theological challenge. The most prominent is Rhetorical Question, where Job poses questions not to gain information, but to make an emphatic statement. By asking "Hast thou eyes of flesh?" and "or seest thou as man seeth?", Job is not suggesting God does have human limitations; rather, he is asserting with desperate conviction that God cannot possibly be limited in such a way. This device highlights the absurdity of the premise and underscores Job's belief in God's perfect nature, even as he struggles with God's actions. Secondly, Parallelism is evident in the two clauses of the verse, which are synonymous. Both "eyes of flesh" and "seest thou as man seeth" convey the same underlying idea of limited, human perception, reinforcing the contrast with divine sight. This repetition emphasizes the critical distinction Job is drawing. Finally, there is an implied Anthropomorphism (negated). Job uses human terms ("eyes," "seest") to refer to God, but immediately negates the human limitation inherent in these terms, thereby affirming God's transcendence. He attributes a human faculty to God only to deny that God operates under human constraints, thus elevating God's nature above human comprehension and fallibility.
THEOLOGICAL AND THEMATIC CONNECTIONS
Job 10:4 serves as a pivotal statement on the nature of divine perception and justice, resonating throughout biblical theology. It underscores the profound truth that God's ways and thoughts are fundamentally different from and superior to human ways. While Job asks this question in the depths of his anguish, it implicitly affirms God's omniscience and transcendence. God's vision is not limited by physical sight, emotional bias, or incomplete information, as human vision often is. He sees the heart, the hidden motives, and the full scope of circumstances, making His judgments perfectly righteous, even when they appear inscrutable to human "eyes of flesh." This verse challenges us to humble ourselves before God's infinite wisdom and to trust His perfect judgment, even when our limited perspective cannot comprehend His actions or the reasons for suffering. It is a call to recognize that true justice and understanding reside solely in God's perfect vision.
REFLECTION AND APPLICATION
Job's poignant question in Job 10:4 serves as a profound mirror for our own limited perspectives. In a world often characterized by superficial judgments, incomplete information, and the pain of inexplicable suffering, this verse calls us to a radical humility and a deeper trust in God's perfect vision. We are constantly tempted to evaluate circumstances, people, and even God's actions through our own "eyes of flesh," which are clouded by personal biases, emotional reactions, and a finite understanding of complex realities. This verse reminds us that God's perception is utterly comprehensive, unbiased, and infallible. When we face trials that make no sense, or witness injustices that seem to contradict divine goodness, Job's question invites us to release our need for immediate comprehension and to rest in the assurance that God sees the full picture, understands the true state of affairs, and judges with perfect righteousness. It encourages us to surrender our limited perspective to His infinite one, fostering a deeper faith that even in the midst of mystery and pain, God's character remains true, and His ultimate purposes are always just and good.
Questions for Reflection
FAQ
Does Job accuse God of being limited like a human?
Answer: No, quite the opposite. Job's question in Job 10:4 is rhetorical, designed to highlight the contrast between God's perfect vision and human limitation. Job is implicitly affirming God's transcendence and infallible judgment. He is essentially saying, "Surely, You, who are perfect and all-knowing, do not see as flawed humans do, making mistakes or judging superficially. So, if You see perfectly, why am I, an innocent man, suffering this way?" It's a desperate plea for God to act according to His perfect, righteous nature, rather than an accusation of human-like limitation. This tension between God's perfect character and Job's inexplicable suffering is central to the book's theological exploration.
How does Job 10:4 contribute to the book's overall message about God's justice?
Answer: Job 10:4 intensifies the dramatic and theological tension regarding divine justice within the book. Job believes God is perfectly just and sees all things comprehensively, yet he experiences profound and seemingly unjust suffering. This verse forces both Job and the reader to confront the limits of human understanding concerning divine justice. It highlights the profound mystery of God's ways, which are often inscrutable to human "eyes of flesh." By asserting God's perfect vision, Job sets up the ultimate paradox that the book explores: how can a perfectly just and omniscient God allow an innocent person to suffer? This question prepares the reader for God's eventual response in Job 38-41, where God does not explain the reason for Job's suffering but rather reveals His own incomprehensible power, wisdom, and sovereignty, inviting Job (and us) to trust in His character beyond our limited comprehension.
CHRIST-CENTERED FULFILLMENT
Job's anguished cry in Job 10:4 for a God who does not see with "eyes of flesh" finds its ultimate and glorious fulfillment in the person of Jesus Christ. While Job longed for a perfectly discerning judge, Jesus embodies the very "eyes" of God, revealing the Father's true nature and perfect judgment to humanity. Unlike human judges who "look on the outward appearance," Jesus consistently demonstrated His ability to see beyond the superficial, knowing the hearts of all people (John 2:24-25). He saw the genuine faith of the woman who touched His garment (Mark 5:34), the true repentance of Zacchaeus (Luke 19:8-9), and the hypocrisy of the Pharisees (Matthew 23:27-28). As the righteous judge, Jesus declares, "I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me" (John 5:30). The profound mystery of Job's suffering, seemingly unjust from a human perspective, is ultimately resolved in the cross of Christ, where the innocent Lamb of God, who "takes away the sin of the world" (John 1:29), suffered the ultimate injustice to demonstrate a divine justice and love far beyond what "eyes of flesh" could ever comprehend (Romans 5:8). In Christ, God's perfect vision is not merely a philosophical concept but a redemptive reality, ensuring that all judgment is true and all suffering, when viewed through the lens of His sacrifice, holds eternal purpose.