As Job continues his reply to Eliphaz in chapter seven, we need to keep in mind what he asked of his friends in the closing verses of chapter six. There he requested that they try to look at him with an open mind, not with a hard heart that was required by a worldview that didn’t fit Job’s circumstance. He asked them to permit their honesty to judge, whether he was lying or telling the truth. In other words, he asked his friends to seriously consider whether he, Job, was a man of integrity or a wicked liar, unwilling to admit error, as Eliphaz had insinuated he was. That is, he accused Job of wickedness, because such a conclusion is required of him, due to the worldview of God that both he and his friends held. With this as our context, Job continues his reply to his friends, defending his desire that God end his life.
Job likens his days as that of the time of service a young man gives to his military obligation (Job 7:1). The word translated “appointed time” (KJV) “forced labor” (NASB) is a term used for the time one spends in warfare or for a military campaign. Job adds that his days are like the days of a hireling, or like the days of one drafted into the military or of a hired force, a band of mercenaries (Job 7:1; cp. 2Samuel 10:6).
He compares his present, painful, life to that of a hireling who longs for the shadows, meaning the end of the day or the end of his time of service and hopes for the reward promised him (Job 7:2). Daniel prophesied of such a time that looked for the coming of the Messiah (Daniel 10:1), and Isaiah prophesied of the time of the end (Isaiah 40:2-3), which was the message of John the Baptist (Matthew 3:3). Indeed, Paul spoke of his own portion of this time, as a time of ‘warfare’ (1Timothy 1:18) a time of ‘fighting a good fight’ (2Timothy 4:7) a time when he would have to endure hardness, as a good soldier for Christ (2Timothy 2:3), and a time when he looked forward to its end, when he would be rewarded for services rendered (2Timohy 4:8). In other words, Job was asking his friends: isn’t it only a natural thing to do, that one would long for the end of his time of service, when he could rest from his labor and enjoy the reward he was promised?
With this metaphor as a backdrop, Job then paints a picture of his labor (Job 7:3-6). Whether Job has spent a long period of time in his present condition or a relatively short period is a matter of conjecture. If we take Job’s silence in Job 2:13 as a time of mourning over the deaths of his children (cp. Genesis 50:1, 10), and immediately after their deaths he was stricken with his painful disease (Job 2:7), then he couldn’t have been in his present condition for more than a few weeks at best, but this, too, is mere speculation. In any event, Job says that his lot has been months of waste and uselessness (verse-3). Nevertheless, keep in mind that we don’t know, if this should be taken literally or in the sense of how wearisome the time is, when it drags on. Therefore, we must leave the length of the season of Job’s suffering as a matter of speculation.
Job went on to tell his friends that when he looks for the comfort of sleep, he is left to endure endless nights of wondering, when will it all end and the day begin. His skin is broken and worms feast upon his open wounds, and his appearance is one of disgust. His days (his life), go by swifter than the threads of a weaver’s shuttle, wherein he looks for some design or purpose for it all, but he finds none. He believes he is left to live the remainder of his life without hope, and without any sense of value, which suggests the question: “Why wouldn’t I desire it to end quickly? Why shouldn’t I reach out for peace and the promise of my reward?”
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