Job 10:4

Hast thou eyes of flesh? or seest thou as man seeth?

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Benson Commentary

Job 10:4. Hast thou eyes of flesh? — No. Eyes of flesh cannot see in the dark: but darkness hideth not from God. Eyes of flesh are but in one place at a time, and can see but a little way. But the eyes of the Lord are in every place, and run to and fro through the whole earth. Eyes of flesh will shortly be darkened by age, and shut up by death. But the eyes of God are ever the same, nor does his sight ever decay. Or seest thou as man — Man sees the outside only, and judges by appearances: but thou seest my heart.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

10:1-7 Job, being weary of his life, resolves to complain, but he will not charge God with unrighteousness. Here is a prayer that he might be delivered from the sting of his afflictions, which is sin. When God afflicts us, he contends with us; when he contends with us, there is always a reason; and it is desirable to know the reason, that we may repent of and forsake the sin for which God has a controversy with us. But when, like Job, we speak in the bitterness of our souls, we increase guilt and vexation. Let us harbour no hard thoughts of God; we shall hereafter see there was no cause for them. Job is sure that God does not discover things, nor judge of them, as men do; therefore he thinks it strange that God continues him under affliction, as if he must take time to inquire into his sin.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Hast thou eyes of flesh? - Eyes like man. Dost thou look upon man with the same disposition to discern faults; the same uncharitableness and inclination to construe everything in the severest manner possible, which characterizes man? Possibly Job may have reference here to the harsh judgment of his friends, and means to ask whether it could be possible for God to evince the same feelings in judging of him which they had done.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

4-6. Dost Thou see as feebly as man? that is, with the same uncharitable eye, as, for instance, Job's friends? Is Thy time as short? Impossible! Yet one might think, from the rapid succession of Thy strokes, that Thou hadst no time to spare in overwhelming me.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Of flesh, i.e. of a man, who is called flesh, as Genesis 6:13 Isaiah 40:6.

Seest thou as man seeth? Man seeth outsides only, and judgeth by appearances, and is liable to many mistakes, and cannot search out secret faults without forcing men by cruel usage to accuse themselves: but thou needest none of these arts; thou seest my heart and mine uprightness, which my friends do not see, who therefore are more excusable in charging me with hypocrisy: but thou knowest all things, thou needest not examine me by tortures, as thou now dost, Job 10:6. For thou knowest that I am not wicked, as he saith, Job 10:7, and therefore do not thou deal with me as if I were wicked.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Hast thou eyes of flesh?.... God has eyes, but not fleshly ones; he has eyes of love, grace, and mercy, which are always upon his people for good, and are never withdrawn from them; and he has eyes of displeasure and wrath on sinful men, to destroy them; these are not made of flesh, or like the eyes of flesh and blood, or of men; fleshy eyes cannot see at any great distance, and only in one place at a time, and only one object after another; they cannot see in the dark, and what they are, and only outward objects; and in these they are sometimes deceived, and at length fail: but the eyes of God see all things, at the greatest distance; he looks down from heaven, and beholds all the children of men on earth, and all their actions; his eyes are in every place, beholding the evil and the good; he can see in the dark as well as in the light, the darkness and the light are both alike to him; he beholds not only outward actions and visible objects, but the hearts of men, and all that is in them; nor is he ever deceived, nor will his sight ever fail: though Job, perhaps, may mean carnal eyes; that is, evil ones, as especially envious ones are: "is thine eye evil?" Matthew 20:15; that is, envious; and it is as if Job should say, dost thou envy me my former prosperity and peace, that thou searchest so narrowly into my conduct to find iniquity in me, and take advantage against me?

or seest thou as man seeth? look with hatred and envy, as one man does upon another: so seemed the dispensations of God towards Job, as if he did, as he suggests.

Geneva Study Bible

Hast thou eyes of {g} flesh? or seest thou as man seeth?

(g) Do you do this of ignorance.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

4. Job hazards the supposition that God has eyes like men and may see amiss, to account for His mistaken treatment of him.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 4. - Hast thou eyes of flesh? or seest thou as man seeth? Notwithstanding the anthropomorphism of their language, the sacred writers are as fully aware as their modern critics of the immateriality of God, and the immense gap that separates his nature from human nature. It is on this that Job now dwells. God, being so much above man, having eyes that are not of flesh, and seeing not as man sooth, ought not to judge as man judges, with partiality, or prejudice, or even with extreme severity (ver. 6). Job 10:4

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

3 Doth it please Thee when Thou oppressest,

That Thou rejectest the work of Thy hands,

While Thou shinest upon the counsel of the wicked?

4 Hast Thou eyes of flesh,

Or seest Thou as a mortal seeth?

5 Are Thy days as the days of a mortal,

Or Thy years as man's days,

6 That Thou seekest after my iniquity,

And searchest after my sin?

7 Although Thou knowest that I am not a wicked man,

And there is none that can deliver out of Thy hand.

There are three questions by which Job seeks to exhaust every possible way of accounting for his sufferings as coming from God. These attempts at explanation, however, are at once destroyed, because they proceed upon conceptions which are unworthy of God, and opposed to His nature. Firstly, Whether it gives Him pleasure (טּוב, agreeable, as Job 13:9) when He oppresses, when He despises, i.e., keeps down forcibly or casts from Him as hateful (מאס, as Psalm 89:39; Isaiah 54:6) the work of His hand; while, on the contrary, He permits light to shine from above upon the design of the wicked, i.e., favours it? Man is called the יגיע of the divine hands, as though he were elaborated by them, because at his origin (Genesis 2:7), the continuation of which is the development in the womb (Psalm 139:15), he came into existence in a remarkable manner by the directly personal, careful, and, so to speak, skilful working of God. That it is the morally innocent which is here described, may be seen not only from the contrast (Job 10:3), but also from the fact that he only can be spoken of as oppressed and rejected. Moreover, "the work of Thy hands" involves a negative reply to the question. Such an unloving mood of self-satisfaction is contrary to the bounty and beneficence of that love to which man owes his existence. Secondly, Whether God has eyes of flesh, i.e., of sense, which regard only the outward appearance, without an insight into the inner nature, or whether He sees as mortals see, i.e., judges, κατὰ τῆν σάρκα (John 8:15)? Mercier correctly: num ex facie judicas, ut affectibus ducaris more hominum. This question also supplies its own negative; it is based upon the thought that God lookest on the heart (1 Samuel 16:7). Thirdly, Whether His life is like to the brevity of man's life, so that He is not able to wait until a man's sin manifests itself, but must institute such a painful course of investigation with him, in order to extort from him as quickly as possible a confession of it? Suffering appears here to be a means of inquisition, which is followed by the final judgment when the guilt is proved. What is added in Job 10:7 puts this supposition aside also as inconceivable. Such a mode of proceeding may be conceived of in a mortal ruler, who, on account of his short-sightedness, seeks to bring about by severe measures that which was at first only conjecture, and who, from the apprehension that he may not witness that vengeance in which he delights, hastens forward the criminal process as much as possible, in order that his victim may not escape him. God, however, to whom belongs absolute knowledge and absolute power, would act thus, although, etc. על, although, notwithstanding (proceeding from the signification, besides, insuper), as Job 17:16 (Isaiah 53:9), Job 34:6. God knows even from the first that he (Job) will not appear as a guilty person (רשׁע, as in Job 9:29); and however that may be, He is at all events sure of him, for nothing escapes the hand of God.

That operation of the divine love which is first echoed in "the labour of Thy hands," is taken up in the following strophe, and, as Job contemplates it, his present lot seems to him quite incomprehensible.