Then I said, I shall die in my nest, and I shall multiply my days as the sand.
The saying belongs to Job's continued self-defense, in which he insists he has committed no open sins against God and longs earnestly for God to reveal Himself to him. It looks backward to his earlier life of abundance and public honor, when he possessed more than enough to perform deeds of kindness and those deeds drew to him the recognition men are able to bestow. In that former confidence he anticipated ending his life peacefully in his own home nest and attaining an exceptionally great age, increasing his days beyond number as the sand. That hope was founded on his good works, which he took as proof of his own righteousness and wrapped about himself with contentment, yet such self-erected righteousness was mere defilement containing no deliverance but only death, because he was seeking to establish his own standing rather than submitting to the righteousness of God, whom he did not yet know by personal experience. The saying preserves Job's report of his past outlook and does not prove that every utterance of a speaker in the book is true or universally applicable, since his friends also frequently voiced general truths while misapplying them to his affliction.
The saying belongs to Job's continued self-defense, in which he insists he has committed no open sins against God and longs earnestly for God to reveal Himself to him. It looks backward to his earlier life of abundance and public honor, when he possessed more than enough to perform deeds of kindness and those deeds drew to him the recognition men are able to bestow. In that former confidence he anticipated ending his life peacefully in his own home nest and attaining an exceptionally great age, increasing his days beyond number as the sand. That hope was founded on his good works, which he took as proof of his own righteousness and wrapped about himself with contentment, yet such self-erected righteousness was mere defilement containing no deliverance but only death, because he was seeking to establish his own standing rather than submitting to the righteousness of God, whom he did not yet know by personal experience. The saying preserves Job's report of his past outlook and does not prove that every utterance of a speaker in the book is true or universally applicable, since his friends also frequently voiced general truths while misapplying them to his affliction.