Job 7:7

7 Remember that my life is a breath, That my eye will never again look on prosperity. 8 The eye that looketh upon me seeth me no more; Thine eyes look for me, - I am no more! 9 The clouds are vanished and passed away, So he that goeth down to Shel cometh not up. 10 He returneth no more to his house, And his place knoweth him no more. 11 Therefore I will not curb my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul. We see good, i.e., prosperity and joy, only in the present life. It ends with death. שׁוּב with ל infin. is a synonym of הוסיף, Job 20:9. No eye (עין femin.) which now sees me (prop. eye of my seer, as Gen 16:13, comp. Job 20:7; Psa 31:12, for ראני, Isa 29:15, or ראני, Isa 47:10; according to another reading, ראי: no eye of seeing, i.e., no eye with the power of seeing, from ראי, vision) sees me again, even if thy eyes should be directed towards me to help me; my life is gone, so that I can no more be the subject of help. For from Shel there is no return, no resurrection (comp. Psa 103:16 for the expression); therefore will I at least give free course to my thoughts and feelings (comp. Psa 77:4; Isa 38:15, for the expression). The גּם, Job 7:11, is the so-called גם talionis; the parallels cited by Michalis are to the point, Eze 16:43; Mal 2:9; Psa 52:7. Here we first meet with the name of the lower world; and in the book of Job we learn the ancient Israelitish conception of it more exactly than anywhere else. We have here only to do with the name in connection with the grammatical exposition. שׁאול (usually gen. fem.) is now almost universally derived from שׁאל = שׁעל, to be hollow, to be deepened; and aptly so, for they imagined the Sheôl as under ground, as Num 16:30, Num 16:33 alone shows, on which account even…

Job, observing perhaps that his friends, though they would not interrupt him in his discourse, yet began to grow weary, and not to heed much what he said, here turns to God, and speaks to him. If men will not hear us, God will; if men cannot help us, he can; for his arm is not shortened, neither is his ear heavy. Yet we must not go to school to Job here to learn how to speak to God; for, it must be confessed, there is a great mixture of passion and corruption in what he here says. But, if God be not extreme to mark what his people say amiss, let us also make the best of it. Job is here begging of God either to ease him or to end him. He here represents himself to God, I. As a dying man, surely and speedily dying. It is good for us, when we are sick, to think and speak of death, for sickness is sent on purpose to put us in mind of it; and, if we be duly mindful of it ourselves, we may in faith put God in mind of it, as Job does here (v. 7): O remember that my life is wind. He recommends himself to God as an object of his pity and compassion, with this consideration, that he was a very weak frail creature, his abode in this world short and uncertain, his removal out of it sure and speedy, and his return to it again impossible and never to be expected - that his life was wind, as the lives of all men are, noisy perhaps and blustering, like the wind, but vain and empty, soon gone, and, when gone, past recall. God had compassion on Israel, remembering that they were but flesh, a wind that passeth away and cometh not again, Psa 78:38, Psa 78:39. Observe, 1. The pious reflections Job makes upon his own life and death. Such plain truths as these concerning the shortness and vanity of life, the unavoidableness and irrecoverableness of death, then do us good when we think and spe…

7:7 Those who call upon God to remember are typically seeking covenant mercy (Pss 35:6; 106:4). • Job’s declaration that life is but a breath (Hebrew ruakh) meant either that he was one breath away from death or that his life was like a passing wind (Ps 39:9, 11).