Job 7:15

_SO THAT MY SOUL CHOOSETH STRANGLING, AND DEATH RATHER THAN MY LIFE._ My soul chooseth strangling. Umbreit translate, 'So that I could wish to strangle myself-dead by my own hands.' He softens this idea of Job's harbouring the thought of suicide, by representing it as entertained only in agonizing dreams, and immediately repudiated with horror next verse. 'Yet that (self-strangling) I loathe.' But the Hebrew х_ MIN_ (H4480)] does not signify the efficient cause 'by my bones' or 'hands' (Maurer). Therefore, as in the English version, the meaning is simply, "My soul chooses (even) strangling (or any violent) death rather than my life" - literally, my bones (Psalms 35:10); - i:e., rather than the wasted and diseased skeleton (Job 19:20) left to me.

7-16 Plain truths as to the shortness and vanity of man's life, and the certainty of death, do us good, when we think and speak of them with application to ourselves. Dying is done but once, and therefore it had need be well done. An error here is past retrieve. Other clouds arise, but the same cloud never returns: so a new generation of men is raised up, but the former generation vanishes away. Glorified saints shall return no more to the cares and sorrows of their houses; nor condemned sinners to the gaieties and pleasures of their houses. It concerns us to secure a better place when we die. From these reasons Job might have drawn a better conclusion than this, I will complain. When we have but a few breaths to draw, we should spend them in the holy, gracious breathings of faith and prayer; not in the noisome, noxious breathings of sin and corruption. We have much reason to pray, that...

Verse Job 7:15. _CHOOSETH STRANGLING_] It is very likely that he felt, in those interrupted and dismal slumbers, an oppression and difficulty of breathing something like the _incubus_ or _nightmare_; and, distressing as this was, he would prefer death by this means to any longer life in such miseries....

SO THAT MY SOUL - So that I; the soul being put for himself. CHOOSETH STRANGLING - Dr. Good renders it “suffocation,” and supposes that Job alludes to the oppression of breathing, produced by what is commonly called the night-mare, and that he means that he would prefer the sense of suffocation excited at such a time to the terrible images before his mind. Herder renders it, death. Jerome, _suspendium_. The Septuagint, “Thou separatest (ἀπαλλάξεις _apallaceis_) my life from my spirit, and my bones from death;” but what idea they attached to it, it is impossible now to tell. The Syriac renders it, “Thou choosest my soul from perdition, and my bones from death.” The word rendered strangling (מחנק _machănaq_) is from חנק _chânaq_, to be narrow, strait, close; and then mea

EXPOSITION JOB 7:1 In this chapter Job first bewails his miserable fate, of which he expects no alleviation (verses 1-10); then claims an unlimited right of complaint (verse 11); and finally enters into direct expostulation with God—an expostulation which continues from verse 12 to the end of the chapter. At the close, he admits his sinfulness (verse 20), but asks impatiently why God does not pardon it instead of visiting it with such extreme vengeance (verse 21). JOB 7:1 IS THERE NOT AN APPOINTED TIME TO MAN UPON EARTH? rather, _Is there not a warfare _(or, _a time of service_)_ to man upon earth?_ Has not each man a certain work appointed for him to do, and a certain limited time assigned him within which to do it? And th

SO THAT MY SOUL CHOOSETH STRANGLING,.... Not to strangle himself, as Ahithophel did, or to be strangled by others, this being a kind of death inflicted on capital offenders; but rather, as Mr. Broughton renders it, "to be choked to death" by any distemper and disease, as some are of a suffocating nature, as a catarrh, quinsy, c. and kill in that way and indeed death in whatsoever way is the stopping of a man's breath; and it was death that Job chose, let it be in what way it would, whether natural or violent; so weary was he of life through his sore and heavy afflictions: [AND] DEATH RATHER THAN MY LIFE; or, "than my bones" i; which are the more solid parts of the body, and the support of it, and are put for the whole and the life thereof; or than these bones of his, which were full of strong pain, and which had nothing but skin upon them, and that was broken and covered with worms, rot...

Job was sorely troubled by the cruel speeches of his friends, and he answered them out of the bitterness of his soul. What we are first about to read is a part of his language under those circumstances. Job 7:1. _Is there not an appointed time to man upon earth? are not his days also like the days of an hireling?_ Is there not a certain time for each one of us to live? Is there not an end to all the trouble and sorrow of this mortal state? «Woe is me,» says Job, »will this sad condition of things never come to a close? Must it always be thus with me?» Job 7:2. _As a servant earnestly desireth the shadow,_ When the day shall close, and he can go to his home, Job 7:2. And as an hireling

CHAPTER S 6-7 JOB'S ANSWER _ 1. His Despair justified by the greatness of his suffering (Job 6:1)_ 2. He requests to be cut off (Job 6:8) 3. He reproacheth his friends (Job 6:14) 4. The misery of life (Job 7:1) 5. Two questions: Why does God deal with me thus? Why does He not pardon? (Job 7:8) Job 6:1. He meets first of all the reproach and accusation of Eliphaz (Job 4:1). Because his sufferings are so g

Job again gives utterance to his complaint. In the previous passage Job's tone, as in Job 3:11, had become quieter, and his complaint almost an elegy on human misery. But now he bursts forth again with the utmost violence of expression, and now, as he had not ventured to do in Job 3, directly attacks God. He will not refrain. Though God destroy him, he will speak (Job 7:11). He asks if he is the sea, fretting against the earth with its turbulent waves, or the sea-monster, the great dragon of the deep, once conquered by God long ago (Job 26:12; Isaiah 51:9 Revelation 21:1 *), but

RATHER THAN MY LIFE. by mine [own] hands. LIFE. bones, or limbs: i.e. hands....