Job: What Is Man, That You Magnify Him?
1 “Isn’t a man forced to labor on earth? Aren’t his days like the days of a hired hand? 2 As a servant who earnestly desires the shadow, as a hireling who looks for his wages, 3 so I am made to possess months of misery, wearisome nights are appointed to me. 4 When I lie down, I say, ‘When will I arise, and the night be gone?’ I toss and turn until the dawning of the day. 5 My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust. My skin closes up, and breaks out afresh. 6 My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, and are spent without hope. 7 Oh remember that my life is a breath. My eye will no more see good. 8 The eye of him who sees me will see me no more. Your eyes will be on me, but I will not be. 9 As the cloud is consumed and vanishes away, so he who goes down to Sheol will come up no more. 10 He 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. 12 Am I a sea, or a sea monster, that you put a guard over me? 13 When I say, ‘My bed will comfort me. My couch will ease my complaint,’ 14 then you scare me with dreams and terrify me through visions, 15 so that my soul chooses strangling, death rather than my bones. 16 I loathe my life. I don’t want to live forever. Leave me alone, for my days are but a breath. 17 What is man, that you should magnify him, that you should set your mind on him, 18 that you should visit him every morning, and test him every moment? 19 How long will you not look away from me, nor leave me alone until I swallow down my spittle? 20 If I have sinned, what do I do to you, you watcher of men? Why have you set me as a mark for you, so that I am a burden to myself? 21 Why do you not pardon my disobedience, and take away my iniquity? For now will I lie down in the dust. You will seek me diligently, but I will not be.”
Job stops addressing his friends and speaks to God directly, asking to be left alone by an attention he experiences as surveillance.
The chapter begins with a working man's picture of life. A hired laborer watching for the shadow to lengthen, a servant waiting for his wages Job 7:1–2. What he wants is the end of the shift.
The symptoms are given without decoration: skin clothed with worms and clods of dust, closing and breaking open again; nights spent tossing until dawn Job 7:4–5. The book is not squeamish about what the man's body is doing.
Then the first extended statement about death, and it is bleak and clear. Life is a breath; the eye that sees him will see him no more; as the cloud is consumed and vanishes away, so he who goes down to Sheol will come up no more, and he will return no more to his house Job 7:7–10.
Read alongside what he says later, this is not despair about the resurrection. It is an accurate statement about this life: the dead do not come back to their houses, and nothing in Scripture suggests otherwise. His hope, when it appears, is for a waking at a set time Job 14:13–15, not for a return to the world he is leaving.
At verse 11 the speech turns and does not turn back. Therefore I will not keep silent. From here Job is talking to God, in the second person, and the friends are effectively an audience.
The question he puts is a deliberate inversion. What is man, that you should magnify him... that you should visit him every morning, and test him every moment? Job 7:17–18.
The psalm asks the same question in wonder — that God should be mindful of so small a creature Psalms 8:4. Job asks it as a complaint. Being noticed by God, in his condition, does not feel like dignity; it feels like being watched. The next verse says so in the plainest terms available: how long will you not look away from me, nor leave me alone until I swallow down my spittle? Job 7:19.
He is asking for three seconds of privacy.
And then a question that is more theological than it looks: if I have sinned, what do I do to you, you watcher of men? Job 7:20. He is not denying sin. He is asking what damage a man's fault could possibly do to God — a question the poem will return to when Elihu answers it Job 35:6–7.
The chapter ends on a request for pardon and an argument for hurrying. Why do you not pardon my disobedience... For now will I lie down in the dust. You will seek me diligently, but I will not be Job 7:21.
If God wants him, God had better be quick. That is spoken to the only person Job still believes is listening.
settled What this mark means