20240619

like clay

Job 10:1-22 (JDV)

Job 10:1 My throat is disgusted with my life. I will give vent to my complaint and speak with the bitterness of my throat.
Job 10:2 I will say to God, “Do not just condemn me! Let me know why you prosecute me.
Job 10:3 Is it good for you to oppress, to despise the work of your hands, and favor the plans of the wicked?
Job 10:4 Are your eyes flesh, or do you see as a mortal sees?
Job 10:5 Are your days like those of a mortal or your years like those of a healthy man,
Job 10:6 that you look for my iniquity and search for my sin,
Job 10:7 even though you know that I am not wicked and that there is no one who can rescue from your power?
Job 10:8 “Your hands shaped me and formed me. Will you now turn and destroy me?
Job 10:9 Please remember that you made me like clay. Will you now return me to dust?
Job 10:10 Did you not pour me out like milk and curdle me like cheese?
Job 10:11 You clothed me with skin and flesh and wove me together with bones and tendons.
Job 10:12 You gave me life and faithful love, and your care has guarded my breath.
Job 10:13 “Yet you concealed these thoughts in your heart; I know that this was your hidden plan:
Job 10:14 if I sin, you would notice and would not acquit me of my iniquity.
Job 10:15 If I am wicked, woe to me! And even if I am righteous, I cannot lift my head. I am filled with shame and have drunk deeply of my affliction.
Job 10:16 If I am proud, you hunt me like a lion and again display your miraculous power against me.
Job 10:17 You produce new witnesses against me and multiply your anger toward me. Hardships assault me, wave after wave.
Job 10:18 “Why did you bring me out of the womb? I should have died and never been seen.
Job 10:19 I wish I had never existed but had been carried from the womb to the grave.
Job 10:20 Are my days not few? Stop it! Leave me alone, so that I can smile a little
Job 10:21 before I go to the dark and shadowy ground, never to return.
Job 10:22 It is a dark ground, like a deep shadow, darkness, and disorder, where even the light is like the darkness.”

like clay

Job appeals to God as his creator — reminding him that he was made like clay. Clay vessels can be smashed. We are vulnerable. We are not invincible. When disaster happens, we need a God made of different stuff.