This chapter is a repetition of what Job has said before. For a short time, he forgets about his predicament and turns to his friends and now is back to his predicament ‘woe is me’.
He says mortals are born of a woman, their days are few and filled with trouble, Genesis 47:9. He finds it strange that divine strictness should rest on someone as frail as he is. The existence is fleshly and he asks, who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean thing.
Job might simply be identifying himself with the rest of humanity. Yet in the context of where it sits, what he really is saying is that God cannot judge someone as clean as he must be, Romans 3:23. Further to that, he says since man’s life is only a breath and the least God can do is look away briefly and give me a rest.
He goes on and he pictures the futility of life. He contrasts the fate of things with the fate of people. Out of the top, the fate of things to come.
Job questioned why God would be so concerned with individuals who were like a blooming flower that soon passes away, Acts 17:26. A tree that is cut down can come back but man is just destroyed and is buried.
Job’s words concerning ‘the heaven are no more’, appear to indicate that those who rest in death will not rise out of their sleep until the heavens are no more, 2 Peter 3:10-13.
We must remember, in the Old Testament the idea of death is vague, Job 3:12-19 / Job 10:21-22 / Job 14:20-22, and the idea of eternal life is never really taught. It was Jesus who brought life and immortality to light, 2 Timothy 1:10.
here, Job wishes that God would hide him until His wrath has passed by and then he could remember him again. From Job’s heart escapes the deep hope felt by all mankind if a man dies shall he live again.
Moffat, in his commentary, says the following.
‘Job could cope if he could hope for a life after, beyond the grave. These are the words of a man who can’t let go of his faith even though the present dealings and sufferings with him are a complete mystery to him. And like he has done before he sees God as watching his every move. He sees God as one who pulverises the mightiest works of nature and stalks Job. How thrilled Job would have been to hear the word of Jesus ‘I am the way, the truth and the life, John 14:6.’
Job still feels that God’s rule is arbitrary and not in line with justice. he regards his friends as ill-advised councillors and so he wishes to speak with God personally. It would seem that Job on the surface was convinced by his friends that in life the good are rewarded and the evil punished.
Therefore, his own circumstance is causing him conflict, and he turns to God with a bitter complaint. And he wants to discuss things with God because He is greater and just and at least He will listen to what he has to say.
He wants to prove that he is innocent. In doing so before God he thinks God will take his life but he will accept that. Job is saying a hypocrite would want an audience with God, he wouldn’t stand a chance.
Coffman, in his commentary, says the following.
‘This is indeed a sad and mournful picture of our lives upon earth. The notion that men continue to live on in the lives of their children is contradicted by the fact that whatever happens to them is unknown to the deceased. Man’s brief life is subjected to the very same erosive and destructive elements in our world that can wear down the mountains, and even wash away the stones, so ‘little by little, man’s hope is destroyed, drop by drop’. But it should not be overlooked that Job in this paragraph is pointing men away from the prospects as they are in this life and in the direction of the eternal things of God. The man who establishes his hope in this world only is a fool. It is a race he cannot win, a hope that he shall never realize, a trial that shall never end, and a warfare that he absolutely cannot win.’
"Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."