Job’s reply
19
Then Job answered and said,2 📚“How long will you torment my soul and break me in pieces with words?
3 📚These ten times you have insulted me. You are not ashamed to wrong me 📖.
19:1-3 These words reveal how painful to Job were the false accusations of his friends.⚜
4 📚Even if I have really erred, the error remains with me alone.
5 📚If indeed you exalt yourselves against me and plead my disgrace against me,
19:4-5 Even if Job had sinned, it had not hurt them in any way. And it is not their business to exalt themselves as prosecutors or judges.⚜
6 📚Know, then, that God has wronged me, and closed his net around me.
7 📚“See, I cry out about this wrong, but I am not heard; I cry out loudly, but obtain no justice.
19:6-7 Well, he says, if they insist on judging him he will give them something to use as evidence – he will say that God has not treated him fairly, has caught him in a net like a bird; he cries for justice, for release, but his cries are in vain.⚜
8 📚He has fenced up my way so that I cannot pass, and has set darkness in my paths.
9 📚He has stripped me of my honour, and taken the crown from my head.
10 📚He has destroyed me on every side, and I am gone. He has uprooted my hope like a tree.
11 📚His anger burns against me, and he regards me as one of his enemies.
12 📚His troops come together and build up their way against me, and encamp around my tent.
13 📚“He has removed my brothers far from me, and my acquaintances are estranged from me.
14 📚My kinsmen have failed me, and my close friends have forgotten me.
15 📚Those who live in my house and my maidservants count me a stranger. I am a foreigner in their sight.
16 📚I call my servant, but he gives no answer. I have to beg him with my own mouth.
17 📚My breath is offensive to my wife, and I am loathsome to my own brothers 📖.
18 📚Yes, even young children despise me. When I get up they speak against me.
19 📚All my bosom friends abhor me, and those I love have turned against me.
20 📚My bones cling to my skin and my flesh, and I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.
19:8-20 Job gives a list of the things he thinks God has unjustly done to him. God took away all these – light (v 8), honor (v 9), hope (v 10), God’s smile (vs 11,12), the help of brothers and friends (vs 13-15), love (vs 17-19), and health (v 20).⚜
21 📚“Have pity on me, O my friends, have pity on me! For the hand of God has struck me.
22 📚Why do you persecute me like God, and are not satisfied with my flesh?
23 📚“Oh, that my words were written down! Oh, that they were recorded in a book!
24 📚Oh, that they were permanently engraved on a stone with an iron pen and lead.
Job’s amazing words
25 📚For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that he will stand at last on the earth.
26 📚And after this skin of mine has been destroyed, in my flesh I will see God.
27 📚I myself will see him, and my eyes will gaze on him, and not another. My inner being longs for this.
19:23-27 We come now to some of the most beautiful and significant words in the book of Job. The harsh way Job’s family and relatives have treated him and the accusations of his friends now produce a good result. Job finds no help, no comfort in them, so he must look to God alone. Once again he finds hope and faith stirring in his heart (notes at Job 14:13-15, 16-22; 16:19). He knows he is about to say something very important and wants his words recorded permanently (vs 23,24). In this his wish was fulfilled, for his words are forever recorded here in the Bible. In verses 25-27 Job’s faith rises to its highest point. It becomes full assurance. He uses the words “I know”.
The essence of what he knows is this: he has a living Redeemer; this Redeemer is none other than God Himself; and this Redeemer will stand on the earth at some future time and Job will see Him. In Old Testament days a redeemer was one who rescued others from trouble or bondage, restored to them their lost property, took their side against oppressors and avenged them (Gen 48:16; Deut 13:5; Lev 25:25; Num 35:12; Ruth 3:13; 4:9-10; Prov 23:11; Isa 49:25-26; Jer 50:33-34. Note at Ps 78:35). Job was probably thinking along these lines – none of his relatives was willing to come to his help (v 14), and his friends accuse instead of defending him (v 19); so God Himself will come to his aid, will vindicate him, will deliver him, will avenge his blood (Job 16:18-19).
When did Job expect this to happen? Would it be while he was still living or after he was dead? It is hard to know because the Hebrew in v 26 is very difficult to understand. It could be translated like this: “After my skin is destroyed, apart from my body I will see God”. The Hebrew word translated “in” in some versions can mean “from within”, or sometimes it can mean “away from”. If the meaning is “away from” then Job is saying he expects to see God in a spiritual state after death. If this is the meaning then it is not clear what God standing on the earth would have to do with Job’s seeing Him.
If the Hebrew word is translated “from within” then we should look for a different meaning to Job’s words. They have been interpreted in two ways. Some scholars have thought Job meant this: While he was still living God would appear on earth; his skin by his disease is breaking up and falling away, but he will still be in the body when God comes. At the end of the book God does come and vindicates Job and gives him health and prosperity again, and possibly this is the meaning of Job’s words here. However, there is another interpretation – Job may be referring to the resurrection of the body after death; he will be able to see God because the Redeemer will come to earth and raise him to life again. The author of these notes believes this is the best interpretation of Job’s words.
In 14:14 Job asks if man will live again after he dies. God had not yet revealed to men the answer to this question. Perhaps now God’s Spirit begins to reveal it to his suffering servant and inspires him to declare the great hope of the resurrection. He may have been led by God to say more than he fully understood himself. In any case, how he longed for the day when he would see God, whether in the body or out of the body (v 27). This testifies to the fact that he had a good conscience and was ready to meet his Maker. “At last” (v 25) – or “at a later time”.⚜
28 📚“If you say, ‘How should we persecute him?’ seeing the root of the matter is found in me,
29 📚You yourselves should be afraid of the sword. For God’s wrath brings the punishment of the sword, so that you may know there is judgment”.
19:28-29 Job now gives a warning to his friends. He is sure God will vindicate and avenge him. If they continue to accuse him they are in danger of judgment.⚜