Man’s days are few and full of trouble. He comes out like a flower and withers. No one can bring a clean thing out of something unclean. All are unclean. God determined man’s days, months, and the limits of life. Look away from him and leave him alone, that he may enjoy, like a hired hand, his day. There’s hope for a fallen tree to sprout again. But a man dies and is laid low; man breathes his last, and where is he? Like a river dries up, so a man lies down and rises not again. Till the heavens are no more he will not awake or be roused out of his sleep. He asks to be hidden in Sheol, that God would conceal him until his wrath is past, that God would appoint Job a set time, and remember him. Shall a man live again after he dies? Job will wait all the days until his renewal should come. He asks that God would and Job answer Him. That God would long for the work of His hands, namely Job. Then God would number his steps and would not keep watch over his sin, because his transgression would be sealed up in a bag, and God would cover over Job’s iniquity. The mountain falls and crumbles, water wears away stones and soil on the earth – so God destroys the hope of man. God prevails forever against man, and he passes, God changes man’s countenance, and sends him away. Man’s sons come to honor and He doesn’t know it; they are brought low, and God doesn’t perceive it. Man feels only the pain of his own body, and mourns only for himself.
Job confesses that he’s a sinner, and yet he’s also righteous and blameless before God. I don’t know how, but somehow, he knows that what is happening to him isn’t something that he deserved for something he had done. Actually, he was singled out because he was righteous, not because he was a sinner. Here also we can see the depth of Job’s anguish. He struggles between having no hope to the hope of resurrection or life after death in some regard. Job is waiting for his days of renewal. God save your people. Rescue us from the trouble we see on every side in this world. God deliver us from the evil one. Even when we feel that we have no hope strengthen our endurance.