Job shifts the topic from external influences to internal ones. What happens when hope dies?
Job describes a series of scenarios involving hope. For example, “a servant who earnestly desires the shade” hopes for a break now and again (Job 7:1-2). “And like a hired man…eagerly looks for his wages,” is it too much to hope for his pay at day’s end? Am I hoping for too much to have one good night of sleep? Instead, “I have had my fill of tossing till dawn” (v 4). It’s been like this for months (v 3). Even my hope for healing eludes me; my skin “breaks out afresh” (v 5). In fact, he says, “My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, and are spent without hope” (v 6). Time is passing, “my life is a breath” (v 7), and I’ll soon be forgotten, like a cloud that evaporates (vv 8-10). So while I have the chance, “I will not restrain my mouth” (v 11). Let me be, gentlemen. You don’t have to cage me, as if I’m “a sea serpent” (v 12). And it isn’t helpful to rob me of the little sleep I get with talk of ghosts in the night (vv 13-16)! Then Job suddenly turns his attention to the probing eyes of God. You see how tortured he is. Does he want God to help—to explain Himself—to take his life—to leave him alone? If he has sinned, why will God “not pardon my transgression?” (v 21). Far worse than his friends’ autopsy, he wonders why the Lord is putting him through this torture test. “What is man… that You should visit him…and test him every moment?” (vv 17-18). The psalmist uses similar words but to a very different end. “What is man…that You visit him? For You have…crowned him with glory and honor” (Ps 8:4-5). When I was a boy, I had the verse “Thou God seest me” on my bedroom wall. Before salvation, it plagued me; after, it comforted me. God isn’t spying on us, Job. He’s watching over us, no matter how it may seem. Don’t give up on God.