Job 7:16

So keenly does he realize the misery of his condition and the intolerable painfulness of his life, that he breaks out into a passionate cry that he hates and is weary of life I loatheit. The object of his loathing is not expressed, but it is rather life in general, as the words, I would not live alway, indicate, than what he calls his "bones," cf. Job 10:21. No emphasis falls on alway, the phrase "I would not live alway" is rather an exclamation of revulsion, meaning I desire not life.

let me alone i. e. cease from paining me with such afflictions. Job like his friends regarded his sufferings as inflicted directly by the hand of God, and if God would leave him his pains would cease. The words here are hardly a prayer, but something like an imperious command, to such a height of boldness is the sufferer driven by the keenness of his pains. The last words, "for my days are vanity," support his demand that God would let him alone, by a reference to the shortness of his life; he seeks a little respite ere he die, cf. Job 10:20 seq. This reference to his life as "vanity" or a breathforms the natural transition to the next question.