He Became A Man Of Sorrows

Job 10

 ¹"I loathe my life;I will give free utterance to my complaint;
   I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.
²I will say to God, Do not condemn me;
   let me know why you contend against me.
³ Does it seem good to you to oppress,
   to despise the work of your hands
   and favor the designs of the wicked?
⁴Have you eyes of flesh?
    Do you see as man sees?
⁵Are your days as the days of man,
   or your years as a man’s years,
⁶that you seek out my iniquity
   and search for my sin,
⁷although you know that I am not guilty,
   and there is none to deliver out of your hand?

⁸Your hands fashioned and made me,
   and now you have destroyed me altogether.
⁹Remember that you have made me like clay;
   and will you return me to the dust?
¹⁰Did you not pour me out like milk
   and curdle me like cheese?
¹¹You clothed me with skin and flesh,
   and knit me together with bones and sinews.
¹²You have granted me life and steadfast love,
   and your care has preserved my spirit.
¹³Yet these things you hid in your heart;
   I know that this was your purpose.
¹⁴If I sin, you watch me
   and do not acquit me of my iniquity.
¹⁵If I am guilty, woe to me!
   If I am in the right, I cannot lift up my head,
for I am filled with disgrace
   and look on my affliction.
¹⁶And were my head lifted up, you would hunt me like a lion
   and again work wonders against me.
¹⁷You renew your witnesses against me
   and increase your vexation toward me;
   you bring fresh troops against me.

 ¹⁸"Why did you bring me out from the womb?
   Would that I had died before any eye had seen me
¹⁹ and were as though I had not been,
   carried from the womb to the grave.
²⁰Are not my days few?
   Then cease, and leave me alone, that I may find a little cheer

²¹before I go—and I shall not return—
   to the land of darkness and deep shadow,
²²the land of gloom like thick darkness,
   like deep shadow without any order,
   where light is as thick darkness."

Can one come before the text and not come away seeing the desperation of Job in his sufferings; his anguish, his misery, his drenched soul filled with despair? If one knows anything of the story of Job we see the story of a man, an upright man before God (1:8), who through God's dealings allows Job to suffer though blameless before God on account of any sin. What then of God's purposes for all the affliction, Job cries. And this chapter we hear of the deep despair that has filled the heart of Job. In its entirety, I feel that the two red-lined verses sum up the voice of his mood best: "I am not guilty, isn't there any to deliver me? Please, leave me alone that I might find my cheer again!" Here, Job, a guiltless man yet bitter towards God when the sufferings come, severely we can rightfully add, upon him.

What a deep picture this paints of the contrast of the great character of Job amidst a great and devastating turmoil and that of Jesus in his great suffering. In verse 7, it echoes the conversation Jesus has with the Father in the Garden on the night of his betrayal. "Father, I am sinless and not guilty, won't then this cup of your full extensive wrath, pass-from-me?". Yet there was silence in heaven! There was none to deliver him from the hand of God's wrath towards our sin that was placed upon him.

In verse 20, how the days of Jesus' life were cut so short; his ministry but three quickening years. But what does the writer of Hebrews tell us, for the joy set before him, endured the cross and despising its shame. Don't read to fast over what was said. For the joy set before him, Jesus endured the cross. Unlike Job, he didn't cry out for joy but as Paul the Apostle reminds us, the joy was his in the midst of the suffering because of what was to come of it.

This lamenting chapter of Job is to point us to the sweet Savior who for our sake became sin, who knew no sin just as Job, yet endured the pain of the suffering, far greater than that of Job's afflictions, for the joy that we would be made accessible to the Father once again. Oh the love he has for us. Let us re-read this chapter and see Christ relating to Job here, yet for the love he has for the Father and his people, laments not, but to the cross, endures patiently for the praise of his name.