Job 10:8Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Your hands formed me and fashioned me. Chrysostom and Olympiodorus reflect on this, acknowledging, “I am the product of Your hands, despite being a sinner.” This acknowledgment portrays a plea for mercy towards His own creation. Then, having turned towards Him, You have struck me. By recognizing Him as both the Creator and the Sustainer of all that exists, as well as being the Lord, he transforms his words into a heartfelt prayer, appealing for awareness of the frailty and brevity of human existence. He recalls that in the beginning, He created in goodness but, in His displeasure, brought punishment through death, as expressed in Job 10:10.

The one who asserts being fully shaped and clothed by God offers his spirit and flesh completely to those living in spiritual darkness. He is indeed shaped, as scripture states, after the divine likeness, yet he is also enveloped, as he noted, since he is made of mortal flesh. It is important to recognize that in declaring he is crafted by the hands of God, he elevates the honor of his creation above the compassion of the Divine Judge. While all things were brought into existence through the Word, who is of one substance with the Father, the very act of creation reveals the extraordinary place of humanity above all other creatures and the unfeeling entities of the cosmos.

Job is perplexed by the fact that the Lord, who is all-powerful and all-knowing, not only fashioned humanity but also meticulously safeguards their lives and morals. He cannot comprehend why such a God would subject His creation to harsh suffering for seemingly minor transgressions, even inflicting profound anguish upon him (Job 10: 1-12). Faced with this confusion over the reasons for his undeserved affliction and his inability to vindicate himself before the Divine, Job once again chooses death over life, pleading for relief from the sorrowful days that remain in his existence (13-22).