NOTES for Job 10:1-22
In Job's plea for justice to the Almighty, the artificiality and inadequacy of the theory that explains human suffering as punishment and correction suddenly become clear. On reflection, it turns out to be simply unworthy of the one true God, because it diminishes his majesty. That, at least, is what the author of the book thinks, making Job cry out to God: ‘Do not condemn me; tell me why you contend with me.’ Job sees no meaning in his suffering for himself; perhaps it has meaning for God? Perhaps God is thereby achieving some purposes of his own? What good does God gain from Job's suffering? What meaning does it have for God himself? ‘Is it good for you to oppress?’ Job asks. A human being is the work of God's hands, after all, and nothing in a person is a secret to the Almighty. What Job finds especially unbearable is that he suffers while the wicked prosper. Why does God need this? Can he really possess the crude vindictiveness of human beings?
Job's questions in 10:2–7 are essentially rhetorical; they plainly imply a negative answer. Yet asking them takes a certain courage. Clearly, God is not a human being, and he sees differently. But what, then, is he seeking to achieve?
Job reminds God that he himself created him—and is himself destroying him. What is the point of this, and would it not have been better never to create Job at all? He asks to be allowed to recover himself before death, because he experiences what is happening as God pursuing him, as God struggling against a human being. Job says that, if he is guilty, God will notice and condemn him; but even if Job is in the right, he cannot prove it. Why should God struggle with dust? And why does a human being live if their worth to their Creator is so slight? These questions can be answered only with the knowledge that a day will come when God himself will become incarnate and become human. This alone gives the existence of the human race a meaning that cannot be annulled. But for Job this is a mystery, and so he sees no meaning in being in the right; for him, the only prospect is death.