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Shall see me no more - If I die in my present state, with all this load of undeserved odium which is cast upon me by my friends, I shall never have an opportunity of vindicating my character, and regaining the good opinion of mankind.

Thine eyes are upon one, and I am not - Thou canst look me into nothing. Or, Let thine eye be upon me as judged to death, and I shall immediately cease to live among men.

The eye of him that hath seen me shall see me no more - I shall be cut off from all my friends - one of the things which most distresses people when they come to die.

Thine eyes are upon me, and I am not - see Job 7:21. Dr. Good renders this, “let thine eye be upon me, and I am nothing.” Herder, “thine eye will seek me, but I am no more.” According to this the sense is, that he was soon to be removed from the place where he had dwelt, and that should he be sought there he could not be found. He would seem to represent God as looking for him, and not finding him; see Job 7:21. The margin has,” I can live no longer.” It may be possible that this is the meaning, that God had fixed an intense gaze upon him, and that he could not survive it. If this is the sense, then it accords with the descriptions given of the majesty of God everywhere in the Scriptures - that nothing could endure His presence, that even the earth trembles, and the mountains melt away, at his touch. Thus, in Psalm 104:32:

He looketh on the earth, and it trembleth;

He toucheth the hills, and they smoke.

Compare the representation of the power of the eye in Job 16:9:

He teareth me in his wrath who hateth me;

He gnasheth upon me with his teeth

Mine enemy sharpeneth his eyes upon me.

On the whole, I think it probable that this is the sense here. There is an energy in the original which is greatly enfeebled in the common translation. God had fixed his eyes upon Job, and he at once disappeared; compare Revelation 20:11: “And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat upon it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away, and there was found no place for them.”

Plain truths as to the shortness and vanity of man's life, and the certainty of death, do us good, when we think and speak of them with application to ourselves. Dying is done but once, and therefore it had need be well done. An error here is past retrieve. Other clouds arise, but the same cloud never returns: so a new generation of men is raised up, but the former generation vanishes away. Glorified saints shall return no more to the cares and sorrows of their houses; nor condemned sinners to the gaieties and pleasures of their houses. It concerns us to secure a better place when we die. From these reasons Job might have drawn a better conclusion than this, I will complain. When we have but a few breaths to draw, we should spend them in the holy, gracious breathings of faith and prayer; not in the noisome, noxious breathings of sin and corruption. We have much reason to pray, that He who keeps Israel, and neither slumbers nor sleeps, may keep us when we slumber and sleep. Job covets to rest in his grave. Doubtless, this was his infirmity; for though a good man would choose death rather than sin, yet he should be content to live as long as God pleases, because life is our opportunity of glorifying him, and preparing for heaven.