Job 7

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¹“Is not all human life a struggle? Our lives are like that of a hired hand, ✦ ²like a worker who longs for the shade, like a servant waiting to be paid. ✦ ³I, too, have been assigned months of futility, long and weary nights of misery. ✦ ⁴Lying in bed, I think, ‘When will it be morning?’ But the night drags on, and I toss till dawn. ✦ ⁵My body is covered with maggots and scabs. My skin breaks open, oozing with pus. ✦ ⁶“My days fly faster than a weaver’s shuttle. They end without hope. ✦ ⁷O God, remember that my life is but a breath, and I will never again feel happiness. ✦ ⁸You see me now, but not for long. You will look for me, but I will be gone. ✦ ⁹Just as a cloud dissipates and vanishes, those who die will not come back. ✦ ¹⁰They are gone forever from their home— never to be seen again. ✦ ¹¹“I cannot keep from speaking. I must express my anguish. My bitter soul must complain. ✦ ¹²Am I a sea monster or a dragon that you must place me under guard? ✦ ¹³I think, ‘My bed will comfort me, and sleep will ease my misery,’ ✦ ¹⁴but then you shatter me with dreams and terrify me with visions. ✦ ¹⁵I would rather be strangled— rather die than suffer like this. ✦ ¹⁶I hate my life and don’t want to go on living. Oh, leave me alone for my few remaining days. ✦ ¹⁷“What are people, that you should make so much of us, that you should think of us so often? ✦ ¹⁸For you examine us every morning and test us every moment. ✦ ¹⁹Why won’t you leave me alone, at least long enough for me to swallow! ✦ ²⁰If I have sinned, what have I done to you, O watcher of all humanity? Why make me your target? Am I a burden to you? ✦ ²¹Why not just forgive my sin and take away my guilt? For soon I will lie down in the dust and die. When you look for me, I will be gone.” ✦

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Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Where this chapter connects

Job 10 ·9 Job 14 ·8 Job 9 ·7 Ps 39 ·7 Isa 38 ·6 Job 7 ·6 Job 17 ·5 Job 16 ·5

Christ at the center

Job's cry for a mediator who can lay his hand on both God and man, and his confidence that 'my Redeemer lives' and will stand on the earth, reaches forward to Jesus the living Redeemer.

How Job 7 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.

Resources, by level

Lay

★ Start hereAudioThrough the WordThrough the Word · ~10 min/chapter · Free · evangelical
A clear ~10-minute audio teaching for every one of the Bible's 1,189 chapters — the most systematic free way to study chapter by chapter.

Pastoral

SermonChuck Smith — C2000 SeriesChuck Smith · Free · evangelical
Free verse-by-verse audio through the entire Bible from the founder of Calvary Chapel.

Commentaries & study tools

VideoBibleProject — Job videosBibleProject · Lay · Free · evangelical
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
VideoWatch teaching on Job 7YouTube · Lay · Free
Sermons and chapter teaching from across YouTube.
CommentaryEnduring Word — Job 7David Guzik · Lay · Free · evangelical
Readable, verse-by-verse exposition of the whole chapter.
CommentaryMatthew Henry on JobMatthew Henry · Pastoral · Free · evangelical
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
ReferenceBlue Letter Bible — Job 7Blue Letter Bible · Seminary · Free
Interlinear, lexicon, and study tools across the chapter.

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