Job 6:9

King James Version (KJV)

Even that it would please God to destroy me; that he would let loose his hand, and cut me off!

Adam Clarke
Bible Commentary

Let loose his hand - A metaphor taken from an archer drawing his arrow to the head, and then loosing his hold, that the arrow may fly to the mark. See on Job 6:4; (note).

Was this helpful?

Albert Barnes
Notes on the Whole Bible

Even that it would please God to destroy me - To put me to death, and to release me from my sorrows; compare Job 3:20-21. The word rendered “destroy” here (דכא dâkâ' ) means properly to break in pieces, to crush, to trample under foot, to make small by bruising. Here the sense is, that Job wished that God would crush him, so as to take his life. The Septuagint renders it “wound” - τρωσάτω trōsatō The Chaldee renders it, “Let God, who has begun to make me poor, loose his hand and make me rich.”

That he would let loose his hand - Job here represents the hand of God as bound or confined. He wishes that that fettered hand were released, and were so free in its inflictions that he might be permitted to die.

And cut me off - This expression, says Gesenius (Lexicon on the word בצע betsa‛ ), is a metaphor derived from a weaver, who, when his web is finished, cuts it off from the thrum by which it is fastened to the loom; see the notes at Isaiah 38:12. The sense is, that Job wished that God would wholly finish his work, and that as he had begun to destroy him he would complete it.

Was this helpful?

Matthew Henry
Concise Bible Commentary

Job had desired death as the happy end of his miseries. For this, Eliphaz had reproved him, but he asks for it again with more vehemence than before. It was very rash to speak thus of God destroying him. Who, for one hour, could endure the wrath of the Almighty, if he let loose his hand against him? Let us rather say with David, O spare me a little. Job grounds his comfort upon the testimony of his conscience, that he had been, in some degree, serviceable to the glory of God. Those who have grace in them, who have the evidence of it, and have it in exercise, have wisdom in them, which will be their help in the worst of times.

Was this helpful?

Ellen G. White
Prophets and Kings, 163

“O that I might have my request;
And that God would grant me the thing that I long for!
Even that it would please God to destroy me;
That He would let loose His hand, and cut me off!
Then should I yet have comfort.” PK 163.1

“I will not refrain my mouth;
I will speak in the anguish of my spirit;
I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.” PK 163.2

“My soul chooseth ... death rather than my life.
I loathe it;
I would not live alway:
Let me alone;
For my days are vanity.” PK 163.3

Read in context »

Was this helpful?

Cross References

that it would