Глава 10

Continuation of Job's response to Bildad's speech. 1–12. Job's attempts to explain the cause of his suffering and its unsatisfactory nature. 13–19. New perplexities arise on this basis. 20–22. Request for clemency. Job 10:1. My soul is disgusted with my life; I will indulge in my sorrow; I will speak in the sorrow of my soul. Job 10:2. I will tell God: do not blame me; tell me why you are fighting me? Job does not feel the desire to continue life (Job 9.21 etc.); She is disgusting to him and causes nothing but complaints. The Lord could dispel, destroy such a mood and thereby arouse the desire for life with his answer, for which Job suffers and is punished (cf. Job 3.20–23). But he acts only as a punisher and does not explain his guilt. Job 10:3. Is it good for You that You oppress, that You despise the work of Your hands, and send light against the counsel of the wicked? Job 10:4. Do You have carnal eyes, and Do You look as man looks? Job 10:5. Are Your days like the days of a man, or Your years like the days of a man, Job 10:6. that You are looking for vice in me and inquiring about sin in me, Job 10:7. although you know that I am not a transgressor, and that there is no one to deliver me from Your hand? Job’s personal efforts to comprehend the cause of the disasters that befell him and thereby alleviate his grief are also in vain. He does not know his guilt, and the assumptions he makes in order to find out why the Lord is punishing him cannot be considered satisfactory, since they are not compatible with the idea of ​​God. It is unacceptable, firstly, for the Lord to punish the creation of His hands (Gen. 2.7; Ps. 139.15) because it gives Him pleasure (v. 3). Such an assumption contradicts the divine love to which man owes his existence. Secondly, it is impossible to think that punishment is the result of error, ignorance (v. 4). It is characteristic of a person with a limited mind, who judges by appearance, but not of an omniscient God, who knows the hearts of people (1 Samuel 16:7; Sir 23.27–28). Finally, it cannot be assumed that the life of the Lord is as short as the life of a person, and therefore He, fearing to miss the time for punishment, does not allow Job’s sin to be revealed, but deliberately seeks out his guilt and the innocent ahead of time and subjects him to punishment without any need (vv. 5-7). Job 10:8. Your hands worked on me and formed me all around - and You destroy me? Job 10:9. Remember that You molded me like clay and are turning me to dust? Job 10:10. Was it not You who poured me out like milk and thickened me like cottage cheese, Job 10:11. He clothed me with skin and flesh, he knit me together with bones and sinews, Job 10:12. did you give me life and mercy, and did your care guard my spirit? All the above assumptions do not and cannot occur. But in this case, a new bewilderment arises. Just as the first man created from clay, so Job is the creation of God, the direct work of the Lord’s hands. By the will of God, from human seed ("milk") his organism was born in the womb of his mother, by the power of God various members were created one after another ("Your hands ... formed me all around" - v. 8), and with it he was then transformed into a complete man ("clothed me with skin and flesh, knitted me together with bones and sinews", v. 11; cf. Ps. 139.13), over which Throughout the rest of his life, divine providence was constantly awake (v. 12). And if now the Divine Artist destroys His creation (v. 8), moreover, the object of care and concern, then He commits an incomprehensible, incomprehensible act of self-destruction. Job 10:13. But You hid even this in Your heart - I know that You had it - Job 10:14. that if I sin, You will notice and will not leave my sin unpunished. Having shown his love for Job in the act of creation, God at the same time predetermined and decreed, as a rule, not to forgive him even the smallest sin (Hebrew “khata”, in contrast to the great sins committed “with a bold hand” Num. 15.30). How to reconcile these two mutually exclusive principles: love and lack of forgiveness? Job 10:15. If I am guilty, woe is me! even if I am right, I do not dare raise my head. I'm fed up with humiliation; look at my misfortune: Job 10:16. it increases. You chase me like a lion, and again you attack me and appear strange in me. Job 10:17. You bring forth Your new witnesses against me; You increase Your anger against me; and troubles, one after another, take up arms against me. With such an attitude of God towards Job, the latter’s position turns out to be completely hopeless. If he is guilty, then he has no reason to expect mercy and forgiveness; if he is right, then there is no evidence to “lift up his head” (v. 15), that is, to be encouraged. The latter is impossible because in the eyes of God Job continues to be a sinner deserving of punishment. An indicator of this attitude of the Lord towards him is an increasingly intensifying illness, it is a witness to his guilt (Job 16.8), for which God pursues Job like a lion his prey (Isaiah 38.13; Hos 5.14, 13.7), and in causing suffering he demonstrates His omnipotence. Job 10:18. And why did You bring me out of the womb? let me die when no one's eyes had yet seen me; Job 10:19. May I, as if I had never been, be transferred from the womb to the tomb! Claiming that the Lord, even at creation, decided not to forgive his sin (vv. 13–14), Job does not understand how God could give him life. The latter presupposes and requires love, but there was none, for which the definition “not leave sin unpunished” guarantees. There was no love, and Job could not be born. Thus a new confusion arises. Job 10:20. Aren't my days short? Leave me, step away from me so that I can cheer up a little, Job 10:21. before I depart, and never return, to the land of darkness and the shadow of death, Job 10:22. to the land of darkness, such as the darkness of the shadow of death is, where there is no structure, where it is dark as darkness itself. Worried by all these insoluble questions, having lost faith in God as a just, human-loving being, Job, in view of the approach of death (“Are not my days short?”) asks the Lord to step away from him, to stop showing anger (vv. 15–17). Then he will die calmly, untroubled by doubts. And this relatively bright end will be compensation for the darkness that awaits him in the underworld, where there is not even a trace of sunlight (“Ophel” v. 22, cf. Exodus 10.22), where the shadow of death reigns. You might be interested in: