job 7

William Henry Green Files

In his first reply to Eliphaz, Job is in the same state of unrelieved despair as in his opening complaint. The sympathy of his friends had been denied him, and he bitterly scolds them for withholding that pity which was so needful to him in his distressed situation, and would have cost them so little. Eliphaz had reminded him of the infinite greatness of God, and of the feebleness and frailty of sinful man, and urged these as reasons why he should be submissive under his sufferings. To Job's mind these were but an aggravation of his misery and a fresh justification of his complaint. He had but one brief life to live, and this was filled up with weariness and woe, "Therefore," he says, "I will not retrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul." (Job 7:11). And he converts these into please with the Almighty that he would  mitigate the severity of his treatment. He was too insignificant and frail, sinner though he was, to deserve or to require such terrible testing from the infinite God.
​                                 --William Henry Green; The Book of Job Unfolded; 1874

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