For those who may wish to ‘study’ this chapter, the following simple resources are provided for you. Each passage has a four-Part approach to help you take in and think further about what you have read.

Passage: Job 10:1-7

1 ‘I loathe my very life;
    therefore I will give free rein to my complaint
    and speak out in the bitterness of my soul.
2 I say to God: do not declare me guilty,
    but tell me what charges you have against me.
3 Does it please you to oppress me,
    to spurn the work of your hands,
    while you smile on the plans of the wicked?
4 Do you have eyes of flesh?
    Do you see as a mortal sees?
5 Are your days like those of a mortal
    or your years like those of a strong man,
6 that you must search out my faults
    and probe after my sin –
7 though you know that I am not guilty
    and that no one can rescue me from your hand?

A. Find Out

1. Why is Job going to speak out? v.1
2. What is he going to ask of God? v.2
3. What question is he going to ask of God? v.3
4. How does he think the Lord appears to be acting? v.4,5
5. Why is he asking this? v.6,7

B. Think:

1. Why is Job’s previous reticence to speak out going?
2. What does he maintain about his life?
3. Yet what does he think the Lord is doing?

C. Comment:

In the previous chapter Job had lamented the impossibility of a mere man challenging God, but now he is feeling so low (v.1) that he determines that he will speak out anyway; he will voice the questions going round in his mind. Ultimately he feels that he is not guilty (v.7) of sin and so he feels it is legitimate to ask God to come out and declare what it is that He has against Job (v.2).

Of course we know that God hasn’t anything against him; it’s not about sin but about faithfulness – but Job doesn’t know that. From where he stands, it feels that he is under judgment. It seems like God is against him while He lets the wicked get away with their wickedness (v.3). It seems to him that God is acting more like a human being (v.4,5) pointing out his minor faults (v.6) even though he is righteous. He feels he is blameless yet in a hopeless position before God.

Can any of us be utterly perfect? Of course not, but that doesn’t stop the Bible declaring us righteous before God if our heart is turned to Him. Much of the time we are not aware of the minor failings that we have and God does not hold those against us (Rom 5:13) although He will be working to rid us of them. What this story shows, particularly at this point, is that so often we don’t know the whole picture.

D. Application:

1. God doesn’t mind us expressing what we are feeling, even if we are wrong. He can wait for us to get right in our thinking!
2. Faith means being faithful even when we don’t see the whole.

Passage: Job 10:8-22

8 ‘Your hands shaped me and made me.
    Will you now turn and destroy me?
9 Remember that you moulded me like clay.
    Will you now turn me to dust again?
10 Did you not pour me out like milk
    and curdle me like cheese,
11 clothe me with skin and flesh
    and knit me together with bones and sinews?
12 You gave me life and showed me kindness,
    and in your providence watched over my spirit.

13 ‘But this is what you concealed in your heart,
    and I know that this was in your mind:
14 if I sinned, you would be watching me
    and would not let my offence go unpunished.
15 If I am guilty – woe to me!
    Even if I am innocent, I cannot lift my head,
for I am full of shame
    and drowned in my affliction.
16 If I hold my head high, you stalk me like a lion
    and again display your awesome power against me.
17 You bring new witnesses against me
    and increase your anger towards me;
    your forces come against me wave upon wave.

18 ‘Why then did you bring me out of the womb?
    I wish I had died before any eye saw me.
19 If only I had never come into being,
    or had been carried straight from the womb to the grave!
20 Are not my few days almost over?
    Turn away from me so that I can have a moment’s joy
21 before I go to the place of no return,
    to the land of gloom and utter darkness,
22 to the land of deepest night,
    of utter darkness and disorder,
    where even the light is like darkness.’

A. Find Out

1. What fact of life does Job now consider? v.8-12
2. Yet what seems difficult with life with God? v.13,14
3. Yet what does he feel about his life and God? v.15-17
4. What does it leave him wishing? v.18,19
5. What does he ask? v.20b
6. What is he anticipating? 20a,21,22

B. Think:

1. What comes through in these verses of what Job feels God’s intent is towards him?
2. What does it leave him feeling?

C. Comment:

From where Job is in his experience of life, and his ignorance of what has gone on in heaven, his responses in these verses are perfectly natural. First of all he acknowledges that God has made him (v.8a,9a,10-12) but it now seems that God is out to destroy him (v.8b,9b). In both these aspects (life and death) he is acknowledging God’s sovereignty.

But now Job is aware of something in particular, that God is a watcher and He’s always had that in his mind, to watch Job (v.13,14). That’s what it feels like to him! It doesn’t matter whether he is guilty or innocent (v.15), he’s still a wreck, feels bad about himself (v.16), and feels that God is out to get him (v.16,17).

The result of all this is that he wishes he’d never been born (v.18,19) and that, in fact, he’s facing death (v.20a,21,22). That is the depth of what he feels and so cries out and asks the Lord to grant him a period of respite before he dies (v.20b).

We need to reiterate that in his experience of life, and his ignorance of what has gone on in heaven, his responses in these verses are perfectly natural. We often feel the same – but for us we have the wonderful New Testament revelation that gives us the bigger picture that brings greater reassurances.

D. Application:

1. God is FOR US, His children – whatever is going on around us.
2. His grace (His Spirit) is there to help us cope always,