Have you ever been to the funeral of a stillborn child? As you look at the tiny casket, do you wonder why God went to all the trouble of weaving this intricate little human being together in his or her mother's womb, only for him or her to die without doing anything–without speaking, smiling, or loving? It is a sad thought that brings tears to our eyes.

For Job, his life now feels much like the life of that child. As Job grapples with the strange sovereignty of God and the deeply puzzling way in which God governs the world, he asks four questions in great agony.

First, in Job 10:1-3, he asks why God is so determined to be against him. ″Tell me,″ he says to God, ″what charges you have against me″ (v. 2). Job feels like a prisoner condemned without a proper trial, without even being charged. And while God seems pleased to oppress Job, He smiles on the plans of the wicked (v. 3)! If Job is right, there is no justice in the universe.

Job then asks God if He can see straight (vv. 4-7). He knows that mortals, who are with ″eyes of flesh″ (v. 4), cannot see right. But if God can see right, why, when He knows Job is not guilty, does He insist on continuing to search out Job's faults?

In verses 8-17, Job describes in beautiful poetry the care with which God has taken in creating Job. God's hands shaped and made him (v. 8), moulded him as a skilled potter with clay (v. 9), shaped him just as an expert cheese-maker would turn milk into cheese (v. 10), clothed him with skin and all the parts of his body (v. 11), knit him together in his mother's womb (v. 11; see also Psalm 139), gave him life (Job 10:12), and watched over him through birth and his life, up until his troubles (v. 12).

But why did God do this? Was God simply doing it to enjoy the sadistic pleasure of destroying him, and turning him back to dust to make sure he was punished even for the sins that had been confessed, repented of, and forgiven (v. 14)? To Job, God is like a relentless military foe bringing wave upon wave of forces against him, to destroy him utterly (v. 17).

Why then, Job asks finally (vv. 18-22), does God not simply kill him? Job might as well have been like a stillborn child, ″carried straight from the womb to the grave″ (v. 19); he might as well have gone ″to the land of gloom and utter darkness″ (v. 21). There is an echo here of Job's lament in chapter 3.