My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, and they come to an end without hope. Remember, O God, that my life is but a breath; my eyes will never see happiness again. The eye that now sees me will see me no longer; you will look for me, but I will be no more. As a cloud vanishes and is gone, so one who goes down to the grave does not return. He will never come to his house again; his place will know him no more. – will complain in the bitterness of my soul. Am I the sea, or the monster of the deep, that you put me under guard? When I think my bed will comfort me and my couch will ease my complaint, even then you frighten me with dreams and terrify me with visions, so that I prefer strangling and death, rather than this body of mine. I despise my life; I would not live forever. Let me alone; my days have no meaning – Job 7:6-16
In this passage Job continues his reply to one of his “intermittent streams“, AKA friends. He describes something that I have experienced, namely that time seems to go by faster and faster as we grow older….”swifter than a weaver’s shuttle”.
What is sad is that Job seems to have lost hope. That is a lonely place to be. He has become disconnected from the God who sees him….and “The eye that now sees me will see me no longer”
“As a cloud vanishes and is gone”…It is interesting that Job uses the imagery of a vanishing cloud. Clouds have come up numerous times on my walk with water in the bible. In 1 Kings 8:6-16 God showed up as a Cloud in the Temple and in 2 Samuel 22:8-14 God arrived riding on rains clouds.
In most of the old testament up to this point God has appeared as a cloud, a Godly condensate, but in this passage Job seems to be likening himself to a dissipating cloud. His life is like a mist floating over the lake in the morning that disappears with the rising sun. If only Job had the Hope that we can have when God provided us with his rising Son.
Prayer: God thank You that we can do more than dissipate like a vanishing cloud and that we have the rising Son.
Walking on Water 