Read & explore together
Job’s Plea to God
In Job 10:1–22, Job speaks directly to God from deep weariness. He asks why God is against him, remembers that God made and preserved him, and pleads for a little relief before the darkness he expects.
Understanding the passage
Listening in context
This passage is wisdom and dialogue, not a report of added events. Job says he is weary of life and brings his complaint to God. He questions God’s treatment of him, recalls God’s forming care, then speaks of affliction, disgrace, and the darkness he believes is ahead.
Job 10:1–22Main takeaway
Job 10 is a lament in which Job openly brings his pain and questions to the God who made and preserved him.
Look closely at the words
Open a card to explore the full explanation and its Bible references.
01A bitter complaintJob begins by saying he is weary of life. He will speak freely in his complaint and asks God not to condemn him but to show him why God contends with him.
02Questions about God’s treatmentJob asks whether it is good to oppress and despise the work of God’s hands while the wicked seem favoured.
Explanation
Job asks whether it is good to oppress and despise the work of God’s hands while the wicked seem favoured. He also asks whether God sees like a human or searches as though limited by mortal time. Job says God knows he is not wicked, yet no one can deliver from God’s hand.
03Made and preserved by GodJob remembers God as maker. He says God’s hands framed him, fashioned him like clay, clothed him with skin and flesh, and knit him with bones and sinews.
Explanation
Job remembers God as maker. He says God’s hands framed him, fashioned him like clay, clothed him with skin and flesh, and knit him with bones and sinews. He also says God granted life and loving kindness, and preserved his spirit. These images stress God’s forming and sustaining care.
04Affliction and approaching darknessAfter speaking of God’s care, Job says God had hidden these things in his heart. He then describes being marked for sin, unable to lift up his head even if righteous, hunted, and facing renewed witnesses and indignation.
Explanation
After speaking of God’s care, Job says God had hidden these things in his heart. He then describes being marked for sin, unable to lift up his head even if righteous, hunted, and facing renewed witnesses and indignation. He wishes he had not lived and asks for brief comfort before the dark land ahead.
Questions to explore
Pause, look back at the verses and talk together.
01What does Job ask God to do at the start of the passage?
Notice both parts of his request: he asks not to be condemned and asks to be shown why God contends with him.
02Which images describe God making Job, and what do they show?
Read the Bible passage
World English Bible ClassicScripture quotation · Public domain
Job 10:1–22
1“My soul is weary of my life. I will give free course to my complaint. I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.
2I will tell God, ‘Do not condemn me. Show me why you contend with me.
3Is it good to you that you should oppress, that you should despise the work of your hands, and smile on the counsel of the wicked?
4Do you have eyes of flesh? Or do you see as man sees?
5Are your days as the days of mortals, or your years as man’s years,
6that you inquire after my iniquity, and search after my sin?
7Although you know that I am not wicked, there is no one who can deliver out of your hand.
8“ ‘Your hands have framed me and fashioned me altogether, yet you destroy me.
9Remember, I beg you, that you have fashioned me as clay. Will you bring me into dust again?
10Haven’t you poured me out like milk, and curdled me like cheese?
11You have clothed me with skin and flesh, and knit me together with bones and sinews.
12You have granted me life and loving kindness. Your visitation has preserved my spirit.
13Yet you hid these things in your heart. I know that this is with you:
14if I sin, then you mark me. You will not acquit me from my iniquity.
15If I am wicked, woe to me. If I am righteous, I still will not lift up my head, being filled with disgrace, and conscious of my affliction.
16If my head is held high, you hunt me like a lion. Again you show yourself powerful to me.
17You renew your witnesses against me, and increase your indignation on me. Changes and warfare are with me.
18“ ‘Why, then, have you brought me out of the womb? I wish I had given up the spirit, and no eye had seen me.
19I should have been as though I had not been. I should have been carried from the womb to the grave.
20Aren’t my days few? Stop! Leave me alone, that I may find a little comfort,
21before I go where I will not return from, to the land of darkness and of the shadow of death;
22the land dark as midnight, of the shadow of death, without any order, where the light is as midnight.’ ”