Job 7:12

JOB was in great pain when he thus bitterly complained. These moans came from him when his skin was broken and had become loathsome and he sat upon a dunghill and scraped himself with a potsherd. We are amazed at his patience, but we are not amazed at his impatience! He had fits of complaining and failed in that very patience for which he was noted. Where God's saints are most glorious, there you will find their spots. The weaknesses of the saints lie near their strength. Elijah is the bravest of the brave and flees from Jezebel.

JOB was in great pain when he thus bitterly complained. These moans came from him when his skin was broken and had become loathsome and he sat upon a dunghill and scraped himself with a potsherd. We are amazed at his patience, but we are not amazed at his impatience! He had fits of complaining and failed in that very patience for which he was noted. Where God's saints are most glorious, there you will find their spots. The weaknesses of the saints lie near their strength. Elijah is the bravest of the brave and flees from Jezebel. Moses is the meekest of the meek and speaks in passion. Job is the most patient of men and cries, "I will not refrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul." As part of his bitter complaint, he asks, "Am I a sea, or a whale, that You set a watch over me?" He seemed to be watched and whipped—and then watched again. It seemed to him that God concentrated all His strength upon him in afflicting him. He was beaten black and blue and, whereas, other culprits had 40 stripes save one, he had 50 stripes save none! He was spared no suffering and, he cries at last, "I am watched, and checked, as if I were a great sea needing always to be held in bounds or a terrible sea monster needing always a hook in its jaws. Lord, why do You harass me thus? I am such a poor, insignificant thing, that it seems out of Your usual way to be so rough upon one so feeble. The raging ocean, or the mighty leviathan may need such watching, but why do You spend it on me? Am I a sea, or a whale, that You set a watch over me?" I shall not moor myself to Job's sense of the words, but I shall spread my sail for a voyage further out to sea. This sort of talk may have been used by many a man who is now within hail of my voice—may have been used by sailors now before me.

Am I a sea? - That is, “am I like a raging and tumultuous sea, that it is necessary to restrain and confine me? The sense of the verse is, that God had treated him as if he were untamable and turbulent, as if he were like the restless ocean, or as if he were some monster, which could be restrained within proper limits only by the stern exercise of power. Dr. Good, following Reiske, renders this, “a savage beast,” understanding by the Hebrew word ים yâm a sea-monster instead of the sea itself, and then any ferocious beast, as the wild buffalo. But it is clear, I think, that the word never has this meaning. It means properly the sea; then a lake or inland sea, and then it is applied to any great river that spreads out like the ocean. Thus, it is applied both to the Nile, and to the Euphrates; see Isa 11:15, note; Isa 19:15, note. Herder here renders it, “the river and its crocodile,” and this it seems to me is probably the meaning. Job asks whether he is like the Nile, overflowing its banks, and rolling on impetuously to the sea, and, unless restrained, sweeping everything away. Some such flood of waters, and not a savage beast, is undoubtedly intended here. Or a whale - תנין tannı̂yn. Jerome, cetus - a whale. The Septuagint renders it, δράκων drakōn, a dragon. The Chaldee paraphrases it, “Am I condemned as the Egyptians were, who were condemned and submerged in the Red sea; or as Pharaoh, who was drowned in the midst of it, in his sins, that thou placest over me a guard?” Herder renders it, “the crocodile.” On the meaning of the word, see Isa 13:22, note; Isa 51:9, note. It refers here probably to a crocodile, or some similar monster, that was found either in the Nile or in the branches of the Red sea. There is no evidence that it means a whale. Harmer (Obs. iii. 536, Ed. Lond. […]