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The Agora
Bible Commentary
Job

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Job 10

Job 10:1

I LOATHE MY VERY LIFE; THEREFORE I WILL GIVE FREE REIN TO MY COMPLAINT AND SPEAK OUT IN THE BITTERNESS OF MY SOUL: "In a charming essay on music, a recent writer has gathered up a great deal in one telling sentence. He speaks of the various moods of the world's masterpieces of music -- the romance, the sorrow, the aspiration, the joy, the sublimity expressed in them, and he adds that there is only one mood forever unrepresented, for, 'Great music never complains.' At first, this seems too sweeping. We remember so many minor keys, so many tragic chords, in the best music. But, as we think over it longer, it becomes truer and truer. Great music has its minor keys, its pathetic passages, its longing, yearning notes; but they always lead on to aspiration, to hope, or to resignation and peace. Mere complaint is not in them. The reason, after all, is simple. Complaint is selfish, and high music, like any other great art, forgets self in larger things. The complaining note has no possible place in noble harmonies, even though they be sad. So, if we want to make music out of our lives, we must learn to omit complaint.

"Some young people think it rather fine and noble to be discontented, to complain of narrow surroundings, to dwell on the minor notes. But it is well to remember that the one thing to avoid in singing is a whine in the voice; and whining is perilously close to any form of pathos. 'Great music never complains.' That is a good motto to hang up on the wall of one's mind, over our keyboard of feeling, so to speak. The harmonies of our lives will be braver and sweeter the more we follow this thought. Without it, fret and discord will come, and mar the music that might be, and that is meant to be" (BI).

Job 10:3

Could God possibly gain pleasure from the exercise of arbitrary power?

Job 10:4

Could God's view of things be as defective as man's view?

Job 10:5

"You act as though You have but little time to finish with me."

Job 10:8

Yet all the above thoughts (vv 3-7) are incompatible with what Job knows of God, as he describes in vv 8-12.

Job 10:10

The mysterious "curdling" of the embryo in the womb; the creation of something (the child) out of "milk" (semen).

Job 10:13

You were planning to bring such sufferings on me all along?

Job 10:14

If I sin or not, it seems to make no difference to You.

Job 10:21

Job sees death as the reversal of the process of birth: vv 8-12.

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