Job continues his plea to God to show mercy by saying God had created him (Job 10:8). In other words, God, as a great artist, a great inventor, or a great engineer, had taken the trouble to fashion Job, as he had been, before calamity had stricken him down. The emphasis is upon the care God had taken, the delight in his labor, the wisdom in taking all the parts and making them respond as one living entity. Modern science would deny such a description of Job’s birth, but modern science isn’t interested in God as the source of it all, who is responsible for it all, vis-à-vis the first-cause of it all. Take away God and nothing exists, forever and for all time (if indeed we could say time exists without the existence of its markers, sun, moon etc.). The Book of Job isn’t a science textbook. That said, however, neither could science legitimately deny what Job claims here, or put differently: science couldn’t show evidence of error, concerning what is said in the Book of Job. Job is as much created by God as Adam was, and both were fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14).
What Job desires to understand is: why would God take such care in his labor of creation only to (seemingly) take equal joy in its destruction (Job 10:8)? Job pleads with God to remember him, as the work of his hands, a work he once delighted in. Why such contradictoriness? Why does he want to destroy him now (Job 10:9)? Why dismantle him to become the same worthless particles he once was, prior to his being brought together as one living entity? It’s all so confusing!
As milk is poured out and then curdled into the more solid mass of cheese, so God had caused the liquid that made up Job to become a solid, yet tender mass (Job 10:10), held together with skin and strengthened more through the formation of bones and ligaments, all of which had its purpose, as Job was afterward brought to life (not that life within the womb isn’t life, but it is not the life of Job, but is, rather the living house that would contain Job, the man, once he was born—cp. Psalm 139:16).[1] Moreover, the Lord expressed his delight in his creation by visiting Job with blessings beyond number (Job 10:11-12).
Yet, interwoven in this marvelous design, a labor in which the Lord had taken such delight, were also the calamities that had stricken Job down and brought him so close to death (Job 10:13). In other words, the wisdom of God designed all that had become Job, the entity. On the other hand, this wisdom also included the utter chaotic experience that Job now endures, which also Job understands was caused, directly or indirectly, by God. God is responsible for it all! but why? It all seems so contradictory!
Job complains that, if he sins, God keeps a record and refuses to forgive him (Job 10:14). So, whether he is truly wicked or righteous, Job sees no relief. He is unable to hide his affliction, or in the understanding of that day, he is unable to hide the fact that the Lord has judged him, as though he were unrighteous. In fact, Job’s suffering is a source of embarrassment, because he can’t explain it away. His friends see it, and accuse him of being wicked, and he, himself sees it, and wonders why, because he knows he’s not the wicked person his friends make him out to be. He admits to being a sinner, but not the great sinner that God’s wrath has made him out to be, as per the then current worldview of God (Job 10:15).
Job claims his condition has gone from bad to worse, as though the Lord hunted him as a fierce lion. Not only so, but as his condition changes, always for the worse, and with no relief in sight, it seems as though, with each new boil, and with each new pain, the Lord renews his witness against him that he is wicked, (Job 10:16-17). Why, then, O Lord didn’t you merely slay me from the womb (Job 10:18)? “O that that were true, and I had died before anyone had ever seen me!”
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