My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, and are spent without hope.
Job's cry belongs to his answer to Eliphaz's first speech in the long debate with his three friends over the cause and meaning of his suffering, where he justifies his complaint without charging God foolishly while feeling his days gone without hope. The weaver's shuttle pictures those days flying swiftly past and soon gone, showing human life to be very short, mortal, fleeting and vain. Time itself is the weaving of life, with human actions as its threads and each day's swift throw of the shuttle shaping the web, yet behind the tangled and sorrowful side stands the Master Hand working out a design for His own glory and man's best good. Because the little portion allotted to each person is fearfully brief and ends in death, every day should be well spent and seized while it lasts, making peace with God now and gaining eternal life within this short probation in view of the coming Judgment and resurrection. Mortal man's hope of living lies not in this perverted life of sin that works out in death, but in the resurrection through Christ.
Setting and Imagery
Job 7:6 belongs to Job's answer to the first speech of Eliphaz, in which Eliphaz counsels not to despise God's chastening and Job justifies his complaints. It falls within the wider debate and colloquies between Job and his three friends in Job 3-31 about Job's afflictions and about the cause and object of human suffering.
The weaver's shuttle pictures human days passing swiftly and soon gone, showing that life is very short and mortal. It stands together with life as a shadow, a flower, a leaf, a handbreadth, a vapor, a sleep, and a flood to prove that life must be short indeed. God gives this picture so that people will consider life's shortness by looking back at past years and by looking onward in light of the past and of coming time. The shuttle comparison is one of many striking figures given to illustrate the brevity of human life, joined with a shooting star and a ray of light to warn of the brief character of earthly existence.
Job speaks from limited human wisdom and observation, knowing his own integrity yet unable to understand God's dealings with him and feeling his days spent without hope, though he does not charge God foolishly. The verse describes life as passing quickly and being spent without hope, portraying human life as brief, fleeting, and marked by vanity and lack of hope. Human life is short, uncertain, important, unreal, illusory, evanescent, and shadowy. It is pictured as a weaver's thread suspended in the air with the keen edge of a lifted knife touching it, meaning a person may die at any moment, tomorrow, today, even now, with one pressure ending life.
Providence in Weaving
Time belongs to the weaving of life, for human actions form its threads, and what is put into life determines what comes out of it. Life is a homespun web that each person fashions for himself in daily living, with God supplying the warp and the woof while the filling is left to the weaver's own choice, and because the shuttle is thrown daily and swiftly, bright threads should be chosen for the web. Life is a work still in progress whose fabric may look dark and sorrowful on the present side, yet when it is turned the design of the Master is revealed, and for that reason room should be made for Him and work done together with Him.
Each life moves back and forth across the years like a shuttle throwing thread across a loom, weaving a mystic pattern in which brief contacts with other lives are linked in as fragments. Smiles and tears fall as light and shadow upon the web, little heeded while the threads appear tangled and straying, until a figure rises in bold relief and its worth and wondrous beauty are seen. That emerging pattern displays the matchless wisdom of the Master Hand behind the weaving.
The verse belongs to the colloquies between Job and his three friends in Job 3-31 concerning the cause and object of human suffering, where Job judges from limited human wisdom and observation, conscious of his own integrity yet unable to comprehend God's dealings with him and feeling his days spent without hope, though he does not charge God foolishly. Adversity, affliction, and suffering do not signify that a man is under God's displeasure, nor need he be discouraged by them, for whom the Lord loves He chastens, and what serves God's glory serves man's best good if he will trust God. God saw the end from the beginning and was working out through Job what would glorify Himself forever after, bringing comfort and hope to thousands of suffering ones and proving a blessing to Job himself. Human life is brief and fleeting like a weaver's shuttle and marked by vanity and lack of hope, illustrating that people are mortal and subject to death and that their hope of living lies in the resurrection through Christ, while in its application this brief, hopeless life is the perverted life of sinful humanity, which works out in death rather than continued existence.
Urgency for Eternity
The little portion of time allotted to each person is fearfully brief, even briefer than the short span of all earthly history from creation to regeneration as it grows old at six thousand years and rushes to its close. Its flight outruns every figure, so that the weaver's shuttle, the flying cloud, the lightning flash, and human thought are too tardy to illustrate it, and fading, falling, disappearing things are too enduring to illustrate the time left to live. With the end only a step away in the resurrection trumpet, the fleeing heavens, the opened books, and the burning, purifying and renewing of the earth for the saints, this brevity is a motive and argument to snatch the little remainder of life from waste, to improve the few remaining days to the best advantage, and to give a wasted, misspent life to the holy work for which it was intended.
Human life passes away with great swiftness and soon ends in death. Its brevity admonishes every day to have work well done, because today may be the last opportunity to make peace with God or to benefit fellow men. It is short, uncertain, and important, pictured as a flying shuttle darting swiftly past, together with a shooting star and a ray of light, to warn of the brief character of earthly existence and to urge seizing time as it flies and improving each moment while it lasts, since once time rushes into the past no power can bring it back.
Human life is short and moves extremely fast, soon ending in death. Days that seem long when looking ahead seem short like a dream when looking back, and past generations once strong and hopeful are already dead and gone. Because earthly time is so brief, eternal life must be gained within this short life, which calls for examining how life has been spent in view of the Judgment.
This life passes very fast, like a weaver's shuttle, and earthly joys and glories vanish. Because time is fleeting and the Judgment day will soon come, sinners must give their hearts to Jesus now and trust in his love and mercy, so that on the resurrection morning they may be found with the just.
Life passes swiftly like a weaver's shuttle, and in an age of haste that swiftness is seen in a hurried life spent in feverish pursuit of wealth with no time to enjoy the days as they pass. That pursuit drives men to toil from early dawn to midnight, engrossed in wonder-working schemes and sacrificing time, talents, and even eternal life for wealth, fashion, and pleasure while seizing worldly prizes while they can, because the downward current bears along all who will not stem it. Yet that brief life ends in the coming day cruel with wrath and fierce anger to lay the land desolate and destroy sinners out of it.
Life is too brief to squander hours on smoking instead of prayer, Bible reading, and thoughtful preparation for the future. Human days pass swiftly, like a weaver's shuttle, and therefore demand that warning use of time.
The days and years of even a comparatively long life pass swiftly like a weaver's shuttle, and the more interesting the occupation the more rapidly they seem to pass. Present truth, the work it enjoins, and the object-lessons of great present events confirming Christ's speedy return give eminently interesting occupation for mind and earnest energies. So the few remaining years of probation will glide away far more rapidly than the same number of past years when mind and energies are taken up with them. Being thus taken up with things belonging to peace hastens the second coming and makes trials and light afflictions easy to endure.
Job's cry belongs to his answer to Eliphaz's first speech in the long debate with his three friends over the cause and meaning of his suffering, where he justifies his complaint without charging God foolishly while feeling his days gone without hope. The weaver's shuttle pictures those days flying swiftly past and soon gone, showing human life to be very short, mortal, fleeting and vain. Time itself is the weaving of life, with human actions as its threads and each day's swift throw of the shuttle shaping the web, yet behind the tangled and sorrowful side stands the Master Hand working out a design for His own glory and man's best good. Because the little portion allotted to each person is fearfully brief and ends in death, every day should be well spent and seized while it lasts, making peace with God now and gaining eternal life within this short probation in view of the coming Judgment and resurrection. Mortal man's hope of living lies not in this perverted life of sin that works out in death, but in the resurrection through Christ.
Setting and Imagery
Job 7:6 belongs to Job's answer to the first speech of Eliphaz, in which Eliphaz counsels not to despise God's chastening and Job justifies his complaints. It falls within the wider debate and colloquies between Job and his three friends in Job 3-31 about Job's afflictions and about the cause and object of human suffering.
The weaver's shuttle pictures human days passing swiftly and soon gone, showing that life is very short and mortal. It stands together with life as a shadow, a flower, a leaf, a handbreadth, a vapor, a sleep, and a flood to prove that life must be short indeed. God gives this picture so that people will consider life's shortness by looking back at past years and by looking onward in light of the past and of coming time. The shuttle comparison is one of many striking figures given to illustrate the brevity of human life, joined with a shooting star and a ray of light to warn of the brief character of earthly existence.
Job speaks from limited human wisdom and observation, knowing his own integrity yet unable to understand God's dealings with him and feeling his days spent without hope, though he does not charge God foolishly. The verse describes life as passing quickly and being spent without hope, portraying human life as brief, fleeting, and marked by vanity and lack of hope. Human life is short, uncertain, important, unreal, illusory, evanescent, and shadowy. It is pictured as a weaver's thread suspended in the air with the keen edge of a lifted knife touching it, meaning a person may die at any moment, tomorrow, today, even now, with one pressure ending life.
Providence in Weaving
Time belongs to the weaving of life, for human actions form its threads, and what is put into life determines what comes out of it. Life is a homespun web that each person fashions for himself in daily living, with God supplying the warp and the woof while the filling is left to the weaver's own choice, and because the shuttle is thrown daily and swiftly, bright threads should be chosen for the web. Life is a work still in progress whose fabric may look dark and sorrowful on the present side, yet when it is turned the design of the Master is revealed, and for that reason room should be made for Him and work done together with Him.
Each life moves back and forth across the years like a shuttle throwing thread across a loom, weaving a mystic pattern in which brief contacts with other lives are linked in as fragments. Smiles and tears fall as light and shadow upon the web, little heeded while the threads appear tangled and straying, until a figure rises in bold relief and its worth and wondrous beauty are seen. That emerging pattern displays the matchless wisdom of the Master Hand behind the weaving.
The verse belongs to the colloquies between Job and his three friends in Job 3-31 concerning the cause and object of human suffering, where Job judges from limited human wisdom and observation, conscious of his own integrity yet unable to comprehend God's dealings with him and feeling his days spent without hope, though he does not charge God foolishly. Adversity, affliction, and suffering do not signify that a man is under God's displeasure, nor need he be discouraged by them, for whom the Lord loves He chastens, and what serves God's glory serves man's best good if he will trust God. God saw the end from the beginning and was working out through Job what would glorify Himself forever after, bringing comfort and hope to thousands of suffering ones and proving a blessing to Job himself. Human life is brief and fleeting like a weaver's shuttle and marked by vanity and lack of hope, illustrating that people are mortal and subject to death and that their hope of living lies in the resurrection through Christ, while in its application this brief, hopeless life is the perverted life of sinful humanity, which works out in death rather than continued existence.
Urgency for Eternity
The little portion of time allotted to each person is fearfully brief, even briefer than the short span of all earthly history from creation to regeneration as it grows old at six thousand years and rushes to its close. Its flight outruns every figure, so that the weaver's shuttle, the flying cloud, the lightning flash, and human thought are too tardy to illustrate it, and fading, falling, disappearing things are too enduring to illustrate the time left to live. With the end only a step away in the resurrection trumpet, the fleeing heavens, the opened books, and the burning, purifying and renewing of the earth for the saints, this brevity is a motive and argument to snatch the little remainder of life from waste, to improve the few remaining days to the best advantage, and to give a wasted, misspent life to the holy work for which it was intended.
Human life passes away with great swiftness and soon ends in death. Its brevity admonishes every day to have work well done, because today may be the last opportunity to make peace with God or to benefit fellow men. It is short, uncertain, and important, pictured as a flying shuttle darting swiftly past, together with a shooting star and a ray of light, to warn of the brief character of earthly existence and to urge seizing time as it flies and improving each moment while it lasts, since once time rushes into the past no power can bring it back.
Human life is short and moves extremely fast, soon ending in death. Days that seem long when looking ahead seem short like a dream when looking back, and past generations once strong and hopeful are already dead and gone. Because earthly time is so brief, eternal life must be gained within this short life, which calls for examining how life has been spent in view of the Judgment.
This life passes very fast, like a weaver's shuttle, and earthly joys and glories vanish. Because time is fleeting and the Judgment day will soon come, sinners must give their hearts to Jesus now and trust in his love and mercy, so that on the resurrection morning they may be found with the just.
Life passes swiftly like a weaver's shuttle, and in an age of haste that swiftness is seen in a hurried life spent in feverish pursuit of wealth with no time to enjoy the days as they pass. That pursuit drives men to toil from early dawn to midnight, engrossed in wonder-working schemes and sacrificing time, talents, and even eternal life for wealth, fashion, and pleasure while seizing worldly prizes while they can, because the downward current bears along all who will not stem it. Yet that brief life ends in the coming day cruel with wrath and fierce anger to lay the land desolate and destroy sinners out of it.
Life is too brief to squander hours on smoking instead of prayer, Bible reading, and thoughtful preparation for the future. Human days pass swiftly, like a weaver's shuttle, and therefore demand that warning use of time.
The days and years of even a comparatively long life pass swiftly like a weaver's shuttle, and the more interesting the occupation the more rapidly they seem to pass. Present truth, the work it enjoins, and the object-lessons of great present events confirming Christ's speedy return give eminently interesting occupation for mind and earnest energies. So the few remaining years of probation will glide away far more rapidly than the same number of past years when mind and energies are taken up with them. Being thus taken up with things belonging to peace hastens the second coming and makes trials and light afflictions easy to endure.