Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary on the Whole Bible
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Job
Book: Job
Chapter: 10
Overview:
Job complains of his hardships.
(1-7) He pleads with
God as
his Maker.
(8-13) He complains of
God's severity.
(14-22)
1-7 Job, being weary of his
Life, resolves to complain, but he
will not charge
God with unrighteousness. Here is a
Prayer that
he might be delivered from the sting of his
Afflictions, which
is
Sin. When
God afflicts us, he contends with us; when he
contends with us, there is always a reason; and it is desirable
to know the reason, that we may repent of and forsake the
Sin
for which
God has a controversy with us. But when, like
Job, we
speak in the bitterness of our souls, we increase guilt and
vexation. Let us harbour
No hard thoughts of
God; we shall
hereafter see there was
No cause for them.
Job is sure that
God
does not discover things, nor
Judge of them, as men do;
therefore he thinks it strange that
God continues him under
affliction, as if he must take time to inquire into his
Sin.
8-13 Job seems to argue with
God, as if he only formed and
preserved him for misery.
God made us, not we ourselves. How sad
that those bodies should be instruments of unrighteousness,
which are capable of being temples of the
Holy Ghost! But the
soul is the
Life, the soul is the
Man, and this is the
Gift of
God. If we plead with ourselves as an inducement to duty,
God
made me and maintains me, we may plead as an argument for
Mercy,
Thou hast made me, do thou new-make me; I am thine, save me.
14-22 Job did not deny that as a sinner he deserved his
sufferings; but he thought that
Justice was executed upon him
with
Peculiar rigour. His gloom, unbelief, and hard thoughts of
God, were as much to be ascribed to
Satan's inward temptations,
and his anguish of soul, under the sense of
God's displeasure,
as to his outward trials, and remaining depravity. Our Creator,
become in
Christ our
Redeemer also, will not destroy the work of
his hands in any humble believer; but will renew him unto
Holiness, that he may enjoy eternal
Life. If anguish
On Earth
renders the
Grave a desirable
Refuge, what will be their
condition who are condemned to the blackness of
Darkness for
ever? Let every sinner seek deliverance from that dreadful
state, and every believer be thankful to
Jesus, who delivereth
from the wrath to come.