Job 7 Summary - 5 Minute Bible Study

Job 7 Short Summary:

Job despaired of life in chapter 7. He talked about the difficulty and brevity of human life. Job mistakenly thought that it was God who was tormenting him. He spoke directly to God and asked Him to leave him alone so he could have some relief.

Job 7 Bible Study

SHORT OUTLINE OF THE BOOK OF JOB

• Job 1-2 – Job is Persecuted by Satan

• Job 3-37 – Job and His Friends Discuss the Reason He is Experiencing Persecution

• Job 38-41 – God Speaks with Job and Reveals His Greatness to Him.

• Job 42 – God Restores What Job Lost

WHEN:

• The date of the writing of Job is unknown and still debated. Some believe it was written during the time of the patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) or even earlier, while others suspect it was written during the time of Judah’s Babylonian captivity (607-537 B.C.).

• I take the earlier date. The description of Job as the “greatest of all the people of the east” (1:3) and an absence of references to Israel, Jerusalem, and the Temple suggests to me that this book was written early.

KEY CHARACTERS:

• Job – A blameless and upright man who Satan persecuted in an attempt to turn his heart away from God.

WHERE:

• Job lived in the land of Uz. Most scholars surmise the land of Uz was in northern Saudi Arabia, either immediately south of the Dead Sea, I the land that would become known as Edom, or immediately east of the Dead Sea, which is today the country of Jordan.

OUTLINE:

• JOB’S HOPELESSNESS (7:1-11):

  • Job described the hopeless struggle that was his life.

  • He was like slave longing to rest in the shade, like a worker longing for his work to finish to receive his wages, and like a man waiting for the morning through a sleepless night.

  • Job spoke about the difficulty and brevity of human life, saying “Has not man a hard service on earth… My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle… Remember that my life is a breath” (7:1; 6-7).

  • He compared a man’s life to a cloud that is present one moment and then gone the next.

  • This hopeless attitude overtook Job, and he couldn’t keep himself from letting his frustration spill out.

  • He said, “I will not restrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul” (7:11).

• JOB ASKS GOD TO LEAVE HIM ALONE (7:12-21):

  • Job mistakenly thought that it was God who was tormenting him.

  • He spoke directly to God and asked Him to leave him alone so he could have some relief.

  • He asked, “Am I… a sea monster, that you set a guard over me?” (7:12).

  • Even on his bed, he was deprived of sleep. He thought God was sending him nightmares to terrify him.

  • No matter where he went, he felt like God was always watching him making sure he couldn’t find relief.

  • He asked God, “How long will you not look away from me… Why have you made me your mark? (7:19-20).

  • Job was so miserable that he preferred to die.

  • He wanted to escape life and God, because he thought God was the one making him suffer.  

APPLICATION

• I heard a thought that I would like us to meditate on for our application today.

• We often hear people talking about having enough faith to be healed, having enough faith to believe that God can actually heal our broken health or the broken parts of our lives.

• Another important conversation to have is… do we have enough faith to be sick?

• Do we have enough faith to keep trusting God if He chooses not to heal us immediately?

• Do we have enough faith to continue believing that God is good when we don’t see a way out of our trials?