Job 7:1-16: a reflection

1“Isn’t a man forced to labor on earth? Aren’t his days like the days of a hired hand? 2As a servant who earnestly desires the shadow, as a hireling who looks for his wages, 3so I am made to possess months of misery, wearisome nights are appointed to me. 4When I lie down, I say, ‘When will I arise, and the night be gone?’ I toss and turn until the dawning of the day. 5My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust. My skin closes up, and breaks out afresh. 6My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, and are spent without hope. 7Oh remember that my life is a breath. My eye will no more see good. 8The eye of him who sees me will see me no more. Your eyes will be on me, but I will not be. 9As the cloud is consumed and vanishes away, so he who goes down to Sheol will come up no more. 10He will return no more to his house, neither will his place know him any more. 11“Therefore I will not keep silent. I will speak in the anguish of my spirit. I will complain in the bitterness of my soul. 12Am I a sea, or a sea monster, that you put a guard over me? 13When I say, ‘My bed will comfort me. My couch will ease my complaint,’ 14then you scare me with dreams and terrify me through visions, 15so that my soul chooses strangling, death rather than my bones. 16I loathe my life. I don’t want to live forever. Leave me alone, for my days are but a breath.

Job pours out the sheer weariness of his suffering. His life feels like hard forced labor, his nights are wearisome and sleepless, tossing until dawn, his days swifter than a weaver's shuttle and spent without hope. He is worn thin in body and soul, and he does not hide it. My life is a breath, he says; my days are numbered and empty. It is the raw language of someone whose suffering has stretched on until they can barely bear it.

And Job does not keep this to himself or dress it up piously. Therefore I will not keep silent, he says; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit, I will complain in the bitterness of my soul. He voices his misery honestly before God, even to the point of saying he loathes his life and would rather not go on. Scripture does not hide these words or condemn them; it lets a suffering man speak his anguish plainly, wearied to the very edge of endurance.

If you have ever known that kind of unbearable weariness, sleepless nights, days that feel hopeless, a soul worn to the edge, Job's honesty gives you permission to speak. You do not have to hide such feelings from God or pretend a strength you do not have. Bring your rawest anguish to him, as Job did, in the confidence that he can bear to hear it and will not turn away. And though Job could not yet see it, there is hope beyond the weariness: the God to whom he cried had not abandoned him, and in Christ has entered our darkness himself.

Lord, Job voiced the weariness of sleepless nights and hopeless days, and you did not turn away from his raw anguish. When I am worn to the edge, unable to bear the weight, give me the courage to speak honestly to you rather than hiding it. Thank you that you can bear my rawest complaint and will not abandon me. Meet me in my weariness, and hold me until hope returns. Amen.