Job 6:1-30 Job 7:1-21
In Job 6:1-7, Job complained to God about the terrible suffering that he imagined God had burdened him with. God understood his emotions. Job's metaphor about salt being needed to taste unsavory food meant that he was searching for a good reason for his suffering; that is, some meaning in it.
In Job 6:8-13, Job began to sense some revelation from God about the meaning behind his suffering. Job's request to God in verse 8 demonstrated that he had begun to talk to God about the meaning behind his suffering. The difference between Job and his clueless friends was that Job sought God for revelations whereas his friends only talked about God as though He were merely a disinterested party to their conversations. When Job stated in verse 10 that, "I have not concealed the words of the Holy One," he meant that he was speaking the revelations that he sensed he was receiving from God. Job came to believe that if God would only kill him, then he could get some comfort from God and some strength from his sorrow. Job goes on to hope that God will destroy him so that he might find some relief from his suffering. Job's sublime faith was that God would take care of him whether he lived or died. In all this, God was actually giving Job some revelations about spiritual comfort and rest for His people following their physical deaths.
In Job 6:14-30, Job complained to his friends that they really did not try to speak truth to him. Their deceitful words to him simply vanished into nothingness because they were meaningless. Job's friends provided worthless comfort because they implied that Job wholly deserved his suffering. In verse 21, Job discerned that they blamed him for his suffering because they were afraid for themselves. They only saw Job's suffering as a teaching method to show them how to avoid suffering. In Job 6:22-30, Job charged his friends to use right words to truly teach him and comfort him. In verse 30, Job reminded them that he could discern their false words. In verse 29, Job countered their arguments that he was wholly to blame for his suffering by informing them that some righteousness existed within his suffering as well as iniquity.
In Job 7:1-16, Job yearned for physical death. But he spoke only of the suffering of material existence. He spoke as if the grave were the end of man's existence. When Job spoke about a watch over a whale in the sea, he actually received a glimpse from God about an afterlife in which God preserves His created lives in unbelievers in an actual place called the Sea. Revelation 20:13; Revelation 20:5. In verses 13-14, Job complained that he feared sleep because God might give him a vision of an afterlife of continued suffering. In verse 15, Job rejected life itself and yearned for a death that equals nothingness. Because Job feared an afterlife of continued suffering, he begged God to leave him alone. In all this, God understood that Job's deep emotions would cause his faith to waver.
In Job 7:17-21, Job began again to pray to God for a revelation about the meaning of his suffering. He wondered why God did not just leave him alone if no meaning existed. In verse 20, God revealed to Job that he was a sinner, and yet God will preserve the good lives that He put into men despite the fact that men are sinners. Genesis 1:27; Genesis 3:20; Luke 20:38. Job then complained to God by asking Him why God had singled him out to bear the burden of such suffering. Job asked God why He could not just forgive his iniquity and relieve his suffering. Job's questions demonstrated that God had given him a insight into the fact that God can forgive iniquity. By his acceptance of God's insight, Job demonstrated that his great faith continued. But then Job's suffering caused him again to waver between complete despair and faith in God. In the end of his speech, Job again despaired and imagined that in the morning after his physical death, meaning his afterlife, God would not find him at all.
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