So that my soul chooseth strangling, and death rather than my life.
In his affliction and darkness and profound grief, Job became so weary of life that he preferred death to continuing to live. That preference expressed anguished despair, not a hope that God had abandoned him. He was not allowed to die. He was later led from discouragement to trust in God's mercy and saving power.
The same longing for the grave shows what unkindness in the home does to the heart. When friends and relatives follow kind greetings with fretful, passionate words, with faultfinding and recrimination and careless neglect, they give sorrow and lay on a burden of unkindness. That burden crushes out hope until the grave seems desirable rather than life.
In his affliction and darkness and profound grief, Job became so weary of life that he preferred death to continuing to live. That preference expressed anguished despair, not a hope that God had abandoned him. He was not allowed to die. He was later led from discouragement to trust in God's mercy and saving power.
The same longing for the grave shows what unkindness in the home does to the heart. When friends and relatives follow kind greetings with fretful, passionate words, with faultfinding and recrimination and careless neglect, they give sorrow and lay on a burden of unkindness. That burden crushes out hope until the grave seems desirable rather than life.