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Job begins his answer to Bildad's second speech by an expostulation against the unkindness of his friends, who break him in pieces, and torture him, with their reproaches (verses 1-5). He then once more, and more plainly than on any other occasion, recounts his woes.
(1) His severe treatment by God (verses 6-13);
(2) his harsh usage by his relatives and friends (verses 14-19): and
(3) the pain caused him by his disease (verse 20); and appeals to his friends on these grounds for pity and forbearance (verses 21, 22). Next, he proceeds to make his great avowal, prefacing it with a wish for its preservation as a perpetual record (verses 23, 24); the avowal itself follows (verses 25-27); and the speech terminates with a warning to his "comforters,'' that if they continue to persecute him, a judgment will fall upon them (verses 28, 29).
Job_19:1, Job_19:2
Then Job answered and said, How long will ye vex my soul, and break me in pieces with words? Job is no Stoic. He is not insensible to his friends' attacks. On the contrary, their words sting him, torture him, "break him in pieces," wound his soul in its tenderest part. Bildad's attack had been the cruellest of all, and it drives him to expostulation (verses 2-5) and entreaty (verses 21, 22).
Job_19:3
These ten times have ye reproached me. (For the use of the expression "ten times" for "many times." "frequently." see Gen_31:7, Gen_31:41; Num_14:22; Neh_4:12; Dan_1:20, etc.) Ye are not ashamed that ye make yourselves strange to me; rather, that ye deal hardly with me (see the Revised Version). The verb used does not occur elsewhere, hut seems to have the meaning of "ill use" or "ill treat".
Job_19:4
And be it indeed that I have erred; or, done wrong. Job at no time maintains his impeccability. Sins of infirmity he frequently pleads guilty to, and specially to intemperate speech (see Job_6:26; Job_9:14, Job_9:20, etc.). Mine error remaineth with myself; i.e. "it remains mine; and I suffer the punishment."
Job_19:5
If indeed ye will magnify yourselves against me. If you have no sense of justice, and are disinclined to pay any heed to my expostulations; if you intend still to insist on magnifying.yourselves against me, and bringing up against me my "reproach;" then let me make appeal to your pity. Consider my whole condition—how I stand with God, who persecutes me and "destroys" me (Job_19:10); how I stand with my relatives and such other friends as I have beside yourselves, who disclaim and forsake me (Job_19:13-19); and how I am conditioned with respect to my body, emaciated and on the verge of death (Job_19:20); and then, if neither your friendship nor your sense of justice will induce you to abstain from persecuting me, abstain at any rate for pity's sake (Job_19:21). And plead against me my reproach. Job's special "reproach" was that God had laid his hand upon him. This was a manifest fact, and could not be denied. His "comforters" concluded from it that he was a monster of wickedness.
Job_19:6
Know now that God hath overthrown me; or, perverted me—"subverted me in my cause" (see Lam_3:6). And hath compassed me with his net. Professor Lee thinks that the net, or rather noose, intended by the rare word îöåÌã is the lasso, which was certainly employed in war (Herod; 7.85), and probably also in hunting, from ancient times in the East. Bildad had insinuated that Job had fallen into his own snare (Job_18:7-9); Job replies that the snare in which he is taken is from God.
Job_19:7
Behold, I cry out of wrong; i.e. "I cry out that I am wronged." I complain that sufferings are inflicted on me that I have not deserved. This has been Job's complaint from the first (Job_3:26; Job_6:29; Job_9:17, Job_9:22; Job_10:3, etc.). But I am not heard; i.e. "I am not listened to—my cry is not answered." I cry aloud, but there is no judgment; or, no decision—"no sentence." All Job's appeals to God have elicited no reply from him. He still keeps silence. Job appears from the first to have anticipated such a theophany as ultimately takes place (ch. 38-41.) and vindicates his character.
Job_19:8
He hath fenced up my way that I cannot pass (comp. Job_3:25; Job_13:27; Hos_2:6), and he hath set darkness in my paths. Job complains of the want of light; in his heart he cries, Ἐν δὲ φάει καὶ ὄλεσσον . Nothing vexes him so much as his inability to understand why he is afflicted.
Job_19:9
He hath stripped me of my glory. The glory which he had in his prosperity; not exactly that of a king, but that of a great sheikh or emir—of one who was on a par with the noblest of those about him (see Job_1:3). And taken the crown from my head. Not an actual crown, which sheikhs do not wear, but a metaphor for dignity or honour.
Job_19:10
He hath destroyed me on every side, and I am gone; or, broken me down. Job compares himself to a city, the walls of which are attacked on every side and broken down. His ruin is complete—he perishes. And mine hope hath he removed like a tree; rather, torn up like a tree. Job's "hope" was, no doubt, to lead a tranquil and a godly life, surrounded by his relatives and friends, in favour with God and man, till old age came, and he descended, like a ripe shock of corn (Job_5:26), to the grave. This hope had been "torn up by the roots" when his calamities fell upon him.
Job_19:11
He hath also kindled his wrath against me. It is not what has happened to him in the way of affliction and calamity that so much oppresses and crushes the patriarch, as the cause to which he, not unnaturally, ascribes his afflictions, vie. the wrath of God. Participating in the general creed of his time, he believes his sufferings to come direct from God, and to be proofs of God's severe anger against him. He is not, however, prepared on this account to renounce God. "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him" (Job_13:15) is still his inward sustaining thought and guiding principle. And he counteth me unto him as one of his enemies. Job felt himself treated as an enemy of God, and supposed that God must consider him such. He either had no glimpse of the cheering truth, "Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth" (Heb_12:6), or he could not imagine that such woes as his were mere chastenings.
Job_19:12
His troops come together (comp. Job_16:13, "His archers compass me round about"). It seems to Job that God brings against him a whole army of assailants, who join their forces together and proceed to the attack. Clouds of archers, troops of ravagers, come about him, and fall upon him from every side. And raise up their way against me; rather, and cast up their bank against me. Job still regards himself as a besieged city (see verse 10), and represents his assailants as raising embankments to hem him in, or mounds from which to batter his defences (compare the Assyrian sculptures, passim). And encamp round about my tabernacle; i.e. "my tent," or "my dwelling."
Job_19:13
He hath put my brethren far from me. Job had actual "brothers" (Job_42:11), who forsook him and "dealt deceitfully" with him (Job_6:15) during the time of his adversity, but were glad enough to return to him and "eat bread with him" in his later prosperous life. Their alienation from him during the period of his afflictions he here regards as among the trials laid upon him by God. Compare the similar woe of Job's great Antitype (Joh_5:5, "For neither did his brethren believe on him"). And mine acquaintance are verily estranged from me (comp. Psa_38:11; Psa_69:9; Psa_88:8, Psa_88:18). The desertion of the afflicted by their fair-weather friends is a standing topic with the poets and moralists of all ages and nations. Job was not singular in this affliction.
Job_19:14
My kinsfolk have failed, and my familiar friends have forgotten me (see Psa_41:9).
Job_19:15
They that dwell in mine house, and my maids, count me for a stranger. Even the inmates of his house, male and female, his servants, guards, retainers, handmaids, and the like, looked on him and treated him as if unknown to them. I am an alien in their sight. Nay, not only as if unknown, hut "as an alien," i.e. a foreigner.
Job_19:16
I called my servant, and he gave me no answer. Astounding insolence in an Oriental servant or rather slave ( òáã ), who should have hung upon his master's words, and striven to anticipate his wishes. I intreated him with my mouth. Begging him probably for some service which was distasteful, and which he declined to render.
Job_19:17
My breath is strange to my wife. The breath of a sufferer from elephantiasis has often a fetid odour which is extremely disagreeable. Job's wife, it would seem, held aloof from him on this account, so that he lost the tender offices which a wife is the fittest person to render. Though I intreated for the children's sake of mine own body. This translation is scarcely tenable, though no doubt it gives to the words used a most touching and pathetic sense. Translate, and I am loathsome to the children of my mother's wench; i.e. to my brothers and sisters (comp. Job_42:11). It would seem that they also avoided Job's presence, or at any rate any near approach to him. Under the circumstances, this is perhaps not surprising; but Job, in his extreme isolation, felt it keenly.
Job_19:18
Yea, young children despised me. (So Rosenmuller, Canon Cook, and the Revised Version.) Others translate, "the vile," or "the perverse" (comp. Job_16:11). But the rendering of the Authorized Version receives support from Job_21:11. The forwardness of rude and ill-trained children to take part against God's saints appears later in the history of Elisha (2Ki_2:23, 2Ki_2:24). I arose, and they spake against me; or, when I arise, they speak against me (compare. the Revised Version).
Job_19:19
All my inward friends abhorred me; literally, all the men of my counsel; i.e. all those whom I was accustomed to consult, and whose advice I was wont to take, in any difficulty, by keeping aloof, have shown their abhorrence of me. And they whom I loved are turned against me (comp. Psa_41:9; Psa_55:12-14 : Jer_20:10). The saints of God in all ages, and however differently circumstanced, are assailed by almost the same trials and temptations. Whether it be Job, or David, or Jeremiah, or One greater than any of them, the desertion and unkindness of their nearest and dearest, as the bitterest of all sufferings, is almost sure to be included in their cup, which they must drink to the dregs, if they are to experience to the full "the precious uses of adversity."
Job_19:20
My bone cleaveth to my skin and to my flesh. Here the third source of Job's misery is brought forward—his painful and incurable disease. This has brought him to such a pitch of emaciation that his bones seem to adhere to the tightened skin, and the scanty and shrunken muscles, that cover them (comp. Job_33:21 and Lam_4:8). Such emaciation of the general frame is quite compatible with the unsightly swelling of certain parts of the body which characterizes elephantiasis. And I am escaped with the skin of my teeth. The expression is, no doubt, proverbial, and signifies "barely escaped;" but its origin is obscure.
Job_19:21
Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O my friends. On the enumeration of his various woes, Job's appeal for pity follows. We must not regard it as addressed merely to the three so-called "friends" (Job_2:11) or "comforters" (Job_16:2), Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. It is an appeal to all those who are around him and about him, whose sympathies have been bither to estranged (verses 13-19), but whose regard he does not despair of winning back. Will they not, when they perceive the extremity and variety of his sufferings, be moved to compassion by them, and commiserate him in his day of calamity? For the hand of God hath touched me. To the "comforters" this is no argument. They deem him unworthy of pity on the very ground that he is "smitten of God, and afflicted" (Isa_53:4); since they hold that, being so smitten, he must have' deserved his calamity. But to unprejudiced persons, not wedded to a theory, such an aggravation of his woe would naturally seem to render him a greater object of pity and compassion.
Job_19:22
Why do ye persecute me as God? i.e. Why are ye as hard on me as God himself? If I have offended him, what have I done to offend you? And are not satisfied with my flesh? i.e. "devour my flesh, like wild beasts, and yet are not satisfied."
Job_19:23
Oh that my words were written! It is questioned what words of his Job is so anxious to have committed to writing—those that precede the expression of the wish, or those that follow, or both. As there is nothing that is very remarkable in the preceding words, whereas the latter are among the most striking in the book, the general opinion has been that he refers to these last. It is now universally allowed, even by those whose date for Job is the most remote, that books were common long before his time, and so that he might naturally have been familiar with them. Writing is, of course, even anterior to books, and was certainly in use before b.c. 2000. The earliest writing was probably on stone or brick, and was perhaps in every case hieroglyphical. When writing on papyrus, or parchment, or the bark of trees, came into use, a cursive character soon superseded the hieroglyphical, though the latter continued In be employed for religious purposes, and for inscriptions on stone. Oh that they were printed in a book! rather, inscribed, or engraved. The impression of the characters below the surface of the writing material, as in the Babylonian and Assyrian clay-tablets, seems to be pointed at.
Job_19:24
That they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever! A peculiar kind of rock-inscription, of which, so far as I know, no specimens remain, appears to be here alluded to. Job wished the characters of his record to be cut deep into the rock with an iron chisel, and the incision made to be then filled up with lead (compare the mediaeval "brasses").
Job_19:25
For I know that my Redeemer liveth. Numerous endeavours have been made to explain away the mysterious import of this verse. First, it is noted that a goel is any one who avenges or ransoms another, and especially that it is "the technical expression for the avenger of blood" so often mentioned in the Old Testament. It is suggested, therefore, that Job's real meaning may be that he expects one of his relatives to arise after his death as the avenger of his blood, and to exact retribution for it. But unless in the case of a violent death at the hands of a man, which was not what Job expected for himself, there could be no avenger of blood. Job has already expressed his desire to have a thirdsman between him and God (Job_9:32-35), which thirdsman can scarcely be other than a Divine Personage. In Job_16:19 be has declared his conviction that" his Witness is in heaven." In Job_16:21 of the same chapter he longs to have an advocate to plead his cause with God. In Job_17:3 he calls upon God to be Surety for him. Therefore, as Dr. Stanley Leathes points out, "he has already recognized God as his Judge, his Umpire, his Advocate, his Witness, and his Surety, in some eases by formal confession of the fact, in others by earnest longing after, and aspiration for, some one to act in that capacity." After all this, it is not taking a very long step in advance to see and acknowledge in God his Goel, or "Redeemer." And that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth; rather, and that at the last he shall stand up over my dust. àÇçÇãåï is not "one who comes after me;" but, if a noun, "the last one," as øÄàùÑåÉï is "the first one "(Isa_44:6); if intended adverbially, "at the last"—i.e, at the end of all things. "At the latter day" is not an improper translation.
Job_19:26
And though after my skin worms destroy this body. The supposed ellipsis of "worms" is improbable, as is also that of "body." Translate, and after my skin has been thus destroyed—"thus" meaning, "as you see it before your eyes." Yet in my flesh shall I see God; literally, from my flesh—scarcely, as Renan takes it, "without my flesh," or "away from my flesh"—"prive de ma chair;" but rather, "from the standpoint of my flesh "—"in my body," not "out of my body"—shall I see God. This may be taken merely as a prophecy of the theophany recorded in ch. 38-42. (see especially Job_42:5). But the nexus with verse 25, and the expressions there used—"at the last," and "he shall stand up over my dust"—fully justify the traditional exegesis, which sees in the passage an avowal by Job of his confidence that he will see God "from his body" at the resurrection.
Job_19:27
Whom I shall see for myself. Not by proxy, i.e.' or through faith, or in a vision, but really, actually, I shall see him for myself. As Schultens observes, an unmistakable tone of exultation and triumph pervades the passage. And mine eyes shall behold, and not another; i.e. "not the eyes of another." I myself, retaining my personal identity, "the same true living man," shall with my own eyes look on my Redeemer. Though my reins be consumed within me. There is no "though "in the original. The clause is detached and independent, nor is it very easy to trace any connection between it and the rest of the verse. Schultens, however, thinks Job to mean that he is internally consumed by a burning desire to see the sight of which he has spoken. (So also Dr. Stanley Leathes.)
Job_19:28
But ye should say, Why persecute we him? rather, if ye shall say' How shall we persecute him? That is to say, "If, after what I have said, ye continue bitter against me, and take counsel together as to the best way of persecuting me, then, seeing the root of the matter (i.e. the essence of piety) is found in me, be ye afraid," etc.
Job_19:29
Be ye afraid of the sword; i.e. "the sword of God's justice, which will assuredly smite you if you persecute an innocent man." For wrath bringeth the punishments of the sword; rather, for wrath is among the transgressions of the sward; i e. among the transgressions for which the sword is the fit punishment. It is "wrath" which leads Job's "comforters" to Persecute him. That ye may know there is a judgment; or, so that ye will know there is a judgment' When the blow comes upon them they will recognize that it has come upon them on account of their ill treatment of their friend.
1. Irritating words. (Verse 2.) Their solemn addresses and eloquent descriptions were an exquisite torture, harder to endure than the miseries of elephantiasis. The cruel insinuations and unkind reproaches contained in their speeches crushed him more deeply and lacerated him more keenly than all the sharp strokes of evil fortune he had lately suffered. Wounds inflicted by the tongue are worse to heal than those given by the hand. "There is that speaketh like the piercings of a sword' (Pro_12:18); and to "talk to the grief of those whom God has wounded" (Psa_69:26) is the severest of all kinds of persecution to sustain, as it is the wickedest of all sorts of crimes to commit.
2. Persistent hostility. (Verse 3.) Not once or twice simply had they charged him with being a notorious criminal, but they had harped upon this same string ad nauseam; they had carried their insulting behaviour to the furthest limits; the force of their acrimonious opposition could not further go. Their reproaches had well-nigh broken his great heart; cf. the language of David, who in his sufferings was a type of Messiah (Psa_69:20).
3. Astounding callousness. (Verse 3.) Job was simply amazed at the cool indifference with which they could behold his sufferings, the unfeeling ease, if not the manifest delight, with which they could hurl their atrocious impeachments against him, and the utter insensibility which they displayed to his piteous appeals—amazed that one who claimed to be a friend of his should so completely show himself to be
"A stony adversary, an inhuman wretch
Incapable of pity, void and empty
From any dram of mercy."
('The Merchant of Venice,' act 4. sc. 1.)
4. Unnecessary cruelty. (Verse 4.) There was no "firm reason to be rendered" why they should thus remorselessly pursue him with their hate. They would not be called upon to expiate any of his unpunished crimes. Their theology and their saintly virtues would combine to shield them from that. Believing, as they did, that "the son shall not hear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son," but that "the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him" (Eze_18:20), there was no occasion to dread that any portion of the Divine retribution due to him would recoil on them. Hence they might have spared him any wanton aggravation of his woes. Job's language reminds us
(1) that men may be guilty of sins of which they are unconscious;
(2) that the only thing in which man can claim a true proprietorship on earth is his sin;
(3) that in the ultimate issues of Divine government every man must bear his own burden; and
(4) that this consideration should move a good man rather to commiserate than condemn the wicked.
5. Arrogant assumption. In "pleading against him his reproach," i.e. in urging the intolerable miseries he suffered as a proof of his guilt, they were" magnifying themselves against him" (verse 5), i.e. tacitly boasting of their superior goodness. And as much perhaps as by anything in their language, the soul of Job was stung by the solemn Pharisaic aspect which sat upon their marble visages, and the atmosphere of awful sanctity in which they wrapt their holy persons. But true piety is ever meek and humble, never vaunteth herself, and is never puffed up, certainly never gloats over either the sins or the sufferings of others. A good man may magnify the grace of God that is in him (1Co_15:10), or the office that has been entrusted to him (Rom_11:13), but of himself he ever thinks with lowliness of mind, esteeming others better than himself (Php_2:3), whom he regards but as "less than the least of all saints" (Eph_3:8), if not as "the chief of sinners" (1Ti_1:15).
6. Conspicuous falsehood. Bildad had alleged that Job, by his incorrigible wickedness, had been the author of his own misfortunes, that he had been cast into a net by his own feet (Job_18:8), that his calamity had come upon him as the recompense of his own crime; and to this Job replies with a direct contradiction, insisting that it was God who had flung his net about him, and that, if their theory of retribution was correct, God had wrested his cause and wronged him in so doing (verse 6). That Job's feet were entangled in a net, the testimony of Job's senses proclaimed. That this net had been cast around him by God, the eye of his faith could see. That God could not have done so on account of his wickedness, the inner witness of Job's spirit cried aloud. Hence this theory of the friends, which sometimes lay across his soul like a nightmare, was a blunder, and the allegation of the friends that he was being punished for his iniquity was a lie.
II. JOB'S DOLEFUL COMPLAINT AGAINST GOD.
1. Treating him like a criminal And that in respect of two particulars.
(1) Assailing him with violence: "Behold, I cry out of wrong;" literally, "I cry out Violence 1" (verse 7), "like a wayfarer surprised by brigands" (Cox). A strong metaphor, which may describe the suddenness and severity of the saint's affliction, but never can apply to the Divine motive or purpose in afflicting, since God doth not afflict the children of men willingly, but for their profit (Lam_3:33; Heb_12:10); never rushes on his people like a giant (Job_16:14), or overpowers them like a highwayman, but chastises and corrects them as a father (Heb_12:7); and in all his inflictions never does them wrong or evinces hate, but confers on them a blessed privilege and manifests towards them the purest love (Heb_12:6)
(2) Disregarding his outcries, withholding from him sympathy and succour: "Behold, I cry, but I am not heard;" extending to him neither hearing nor redress: "I cry aloud, but there is no judgment" (verse 7). A complaint, again, which may sometimes receive colour from the saint's own thoughts and feelings, but which never can be really true of God, who never fails to sympathize with his people in affliction (Psa_103:18; Isa_63:9; Heb_4:15), never disregards the prayer of the destitute (Psa_102:17), never declines to aid them in distress (Isa_41:10; Isa_43:2; 2Co_12:9), and certainly never denies them justice unless to give them mercy.
2. Punishing him as a convict. (Verses 8-10.) And that by:
(1) Consigning him to prison (verse 8). The image that of a cell, or narrow space, bounded by a high wall or fence, shutting out the light of heaven, and shutting in the captive it confines (cf. Job_3:23; Job_13:27). Two frequent effects of affliction: to darken the soul's look—its inward look by bringing sin to remembrance (1Ki_17:18), its upward look by hiding God's face (Job_13:24; Psa_42:3, Psa_42:10), its onward look by beclouding the path of duty (Isa_50:10); and to shorten the soul's way, so that it can neither escape from its misery nor enjoy its wonted freedom in religious exercises or in ordinary duties, but feels itself shut up, first to absolute submission, and then to cheerful resignation.
(2) Arraying him in prison robes (verse 9). Job's robe and crown were his righteousness and integrity (Job_29:14). Of these he had been divested, and clothed in the unsightly as well as humiliating garment of affliction, which was to him, what a prison dress is to a convict, an outward badge of guilt. Job in this, however, doubly erred, first in thinking that affliction was either a proof of condemnation or a mark of degradation, and secondly in supposing that he had really lost either his crown or his robe. If by these latter he alluded merely to his former prosperity, that was certainly taken from him; and so whatever of an earthly nature man may glory in—wealth, honour, friends—God can strip him of at any moment. But the crown of righteousness which God sets upon a saint's head is never wantonly displaced, and the garment of salvation which God wraps round a saint's person can never, without his own fault, be removed.
(3) Extinguishing his hope of liberty (verse 10). Like a ruined house whose stones lie scattered on every side, like a great tree plucked up by the roots, Job had no further expectation of seeing the splendid edifice of his prosperity rebuilt, or the expiring life of his sad heart revived. Like the prisoner of Chillon, he had no earthly hope of returning to freedom.
"I had no thought, no feeling—none;
Among the stones I stood a stone,
And was scarce conscious what I wist,
As shrubless crags within the mist," etc.
(Byron, ' Prisoner of Chillon,' 9)
Such a picture is true, not of the saint in the correction-house of affliction (Psa_34:17), not even of the sinner in the prison-house of condemnation, who is yet a prisoner of hope (Zec_9:12), but only of the lost in the dungeon of everlasting death.
3. Counting him for an enemy.
(1) Regarding him with anger (verse 11). Against this conclusion, however, Job manfully struggled, especially when replying to the friends, and ultimately triumphed; but at such times as he fell back to brood upon his inward misery, or turned his weary face upward to God, the thought threatened to overmaster him (cf. Job_13:24; Job_16:9). Yet all the while God was his real Friend, and regarded him with tenderest affection, which shows that God's dealings with his people are often fur of painful and inexplicable mystery (Psa_73:16; Psa_77:19), that "behind a frowning providence" God frequently "hides a smiling face" (Rev_3:19), that God's people cannot always see the bright light which is in the cloud (Job_37:21; Joh_13:7), and that God only is a competent Expounder of his own acts.
(2) Besieging him with trouble (verse 12). The magnificent imagery here employed is borrowed from the operations connected with a siege (vide Exposition). God's armies were the calamities that had befallen Job. Afflictions and the causes that produce them, diseases and the germs from which they spring, misfortunes and the instruments that bring them about, are all under God's command (Exo_8:8; Exo_9:6; Exo_11:4; 2Ki_19:1-37 :85; Luk_7:7), advancing and retiring as he directs.
4. Cutting him off from human sympathy. (Verses 13-19.) A pitiful picture of abject degradation, even worse than that which Bildad predicted for the wicked man who should be chased from the world (Job_18:19). Surrounded by kinsmen and relatives, and still attended by wife and servants, he is to one and all an object of supreme contempt.
(1) Those immediately outside the circle of his household (verses 13, 14), his "brethren" and "acquaintance," meaning probably his neighbours, with his "kinsfolk' and "familiar friends," who were, as distinguished from the former, his relatives, had abandoned him.
(2) Those within the circle of his household, from whom better things might have been expected, had followed their example. His domestics, not excepting the tender maidens whose sex might have "touched" them "with human gentleness and love," gave him no more obedience than a stranger. His body-servant, who was to him as Eliezer to Abraham (Gen_24:2), and the centurion's servant to his master (Luk_7:3), must now be entreated for what was formerly performed at the slightest glance or gesture. Even his wife, the mother of his noble sons and fair daughters, now dead, had forsaken him, her delicate sensibilities unable to endure the offensive exhalations from his body. His own brothers, sons of the same womb, turned away from the intolerable stench.
(3) In short, all who saw him poured on him supreme contempt. The boys, probably of neighbouring families or clans, laughed at his feeble efforts to raise himself or stand upon his ash-heap. His "inward friends," those to whom he confided his secret thoughts and plans, now abhorred him. His very friends, to whom he had given his love, meaning probably Elipbaz, Bildad, and Zophar, had turned against him.
III. JOB'S PITEOUS APPEAL FOR HIMSELF.
1. A pathetic representation. (Verse 20.) Indicating the ground of Job's appeal. Bodily disease and mental anguish had reduced him to a skeleton, so that his bones appeared through his skin; the second clause, a cruz interpretum (vide Exposition), probably depicting extreme emaciation. His condition may remind us of the value of physical health, of its instability, and of the ease with which it can be made to consume away like a moth (Psa_39:11).
2. A melting supplication. (Verse 21.) Expressive of the fervent of Job's appeal. It was not much he craved—only pity, and that on two pleas:
(1) The bond of friendship that subsisted between them. His terrible emaciation was enough to
"Pluck commiseration of his state
From brassy bosoms and rough hearts of flint"
Much more, then, from those who were united to him by ties of affection (cf. Job_6:14, homiletics).
(2) The severe affliction that had been laid upon him. "The hand of God hath touched me." The phrase descriptive of the source of Job's affliction, but pointing chiefly to its intensity.
3. A tender expostulation. (Verse 22.) Were the miseries he was suffering at God's hand not enough to satisfy their insatiable appetites or was God not able to exact retribution for his supposed iniquities, that they must assist him to crush the poor emaciated skeleton who had become his victim? Was it really come to this, that they were less merciful than God; that God's thirst for vengeance, if so be it was that he was being punished, was more easily slaked than theirs? So, alas! it has been found that man's tender mercies are cruel (2Sa_24:14), and in particular that when bigots turn persecutors they never cry, "Enough!"
Learn:
1. There is a limit beyond which even good men are not expected to endure aspersions against their character.
2. It is a shame for professors of religion to indulge in suspicions, or utter slanders, against their brethren.
3. The greatest safeguard a suffering saint has, if also one of his acutest pains, is to connect his afflictions with God.
4. It is better to direct the soul's plaint to God than to utter aloud the soul's complaint against God.
5. The man has fallen low indeed who, besides being deserted by God (or appearing to be so), is also abandoned by man.
6. The woman who forsakes her husband in his hour of sorrow, not only violates her marriage vow, but proves herself unworthy of the honour of wifehood, and brings disgrace upon the name of woman.
7. It is an infinite mercy that God's heart is not so little pitiful as man'&
8. A man's flesh is all that a persecutor can devour.
Job_19:23-29
1. The culture of Job's times. The origin of writing is lost in the mists of antiquity. The earliest known mode of writing was by means of a sharp-pointed instrument—stylus, or engraving tool, made of iron or steel. The first materials used for writing on were leaves of trees, skins, linen cloths, metal or wax plates, stone columns or rocks. Egyptian papyrus rolls and cuneiform tablets, dating from periods antecedent to the times of Abraham, have been recovered by the labours of modern archaeologists. Numerous inscriptions of the kind alluded to by Job have been found by Oriental travellers in Arabia. On the smoothed surface of a solid rock at Hish Ghorab at Hadramut, in Southern Arabia, an inscription of ten lines exists, dating, according to some, from the times of the Adites, the most ancient inhabitants of Arabia Felix, Ad the tribe-father having flourished cotemporaneously with the building of the Tower of Babel. The cliffs of the wady Mokatta, on the route of the Israelites, and in the vicinity of the Sinaitic mountains, contain many such inscriptions (on ancient stone inscriptions, see the Exposition). The knowledge of the art of writing at that early period confirms the belief, which other traces of primeval man also suggest, that humanity was not then a babe wrapt in swaddling-clothes, but a vigorous and intelligent adult, already far advanced in civilization.
2. The certainty of Job's knowledge. What Job wished engraven on the rock was no mere probable conjecture, happy guess, philosophical speculation, or even secret aspiration, but a firm and certain personal conviction. If it be inquired how Job arrived at this immovable persuasion, it may be answered
(1) that the lofty ideas here articulated were perhaps already in the air when Job lived, in confirmation of which may be cited a line from the Adite inscription above referred to: "We proclaimed our belief in miracles, in the resurrection, in the return into the nostrils of the breath of life;"
(2) that the superior capacity of Job, manifestly the seer of his time, standing head and shoulders above his contemporaries in respect of intellectual power and poetic genius as well as moral and spiritual intuition, enabled him to discern and formulate the thoughts after which common minds were only dimly groping;
(3) that the solemn proximity of Job to death, enabling him to realize the unseen with vividness, may have contributed to his extraordinary mental illumination on this occasion;
(4) that the insoluble enigma of Job's own experience appeared to drive him towards the entertainment of such a lofty hope as is here expressed;
(5) that over and above all Job enjoyed the inward inspiration of the Holy Ghost.
3. The importance of Job's words.
(1) The time when they were uttered. They were, to all intents and purposes, his last dying testimony.
"Oh, but they say, the tongues of dying men
Enforce attention, like deep harmony, etc.
('King Richard II.,' act 2. sc. 1.)
(2) The significance of the words themselves. They formed the last and loftiest utterance of Job's religious consciousness, struggling to embody to itself in well-defined ideas, and to express for others in intelligible language, the great hope which had arisen in his soul, and by which he had been secretly sustained throughout his terrible conflict with bodily affliction, personal calumniation, spiritual apprehension, seeming Divine desertion. They set forth the ground on which he based his assured expectation of an ultimate complete vindication against the misrepresentations of his friends, the accusations of his own affrighted conscience, ay, the apparently hostile assaults of God himself.
(3) The value of the words to future times. Job had a clear presentiment that the truth he was about to utter would prove of value to all succeeding ages. Like a new star, it had shot out upon the dark firmament of his soul; and he wished it inscribed in the most permanent form of ancient literature—either engrossed in the state records, or chiselled upon the mountain rock, and filled in with lead to defy the ravages of time, that it might shine on for ever, like a bright particular star of hope, all through the night of time, irradiating the darkness of a sinful world, and cheering the hearts of dying men.
4. The fulfilment of Job's prayer. In a sense, and to an extent undreamt of at the time, has the patriarch's desire been granted. His words have been inscribed in the state records of the King of heaven. They have been engraved by the printing-press in a form more imperishable than could have been derived from the sculptors chisel. They have now been published in well-nigh every language under heaven. One of the latest to receive them was the modern Ethiopic or Abyssiaian, which possesses an affinity to the language which Job spoke. They will now be transmitted to the end of time,
II. THE CONTENTS OF THE INSCRIPTION; OR, THE LOFTY FAITH OF A PROPHETIC SOUL. Up to this point five striking passages appear in the Book of Job. In the first (Job_9:32-35) Job expresses his ardent longing for a Daysman or Mediator who might lay his hand upon both him and God; in the second (Job_13:15, Job_13:16), his confident expectation of acceptance with God, or the strong inward assurance of his salvation; in the third (Job_14:13-15), his deeply seated hope of a resurrection-life beyond the grave and the Hadeau world; in the fourth (Job_16:18-21), his belief in the existence of a heavenly Witness who recognized his sincerity, and his earnest prayer that God might become man's Advocate against himself (God); the fifth, the present passage, seems to gather all the preceding up into one triumphant shout of faith in a living, personal, divinely human Goel, or Redeemer, who should appear in the end of time to vindicate and save Job, and all who, like him, should have died in the faith, by a bodily resurrection from the grave. Analyzed, Job's proposed inscription should contain a declaration of the following sublime truths.
1. The existence of a personal Redeemer. The goel, in the Mosaic code, was the next of kin, whose duty it was to redeem a captive or enslaved relative (Gen_14:14-16); to buy back his sold or otherwise alienated inheritance (Le 25:25, 26); to avenge The death of a murdered kinsman (Num_35:12); to marry his childless widow (Deu_25:5). Obviously, the office of the goel, or vindicator, existed in pre-Mosaic times, and was doubtless derived from primeval tradition. It was in accordance with the natural instincts of humanity, and was probably sanctioned by God, both at the first and under the Mosaic institutions, to strengthen the ties of natural affection among mankind, and also, perhaps chiefly, to suggest the hope and foreshadow the advent of the already promised Kinsman Avenger (Gen_3:15). Hence Jehovah, the Deliverer of Israel from Egyptian bondage, was styled their Goel (Psa_19:14; Psa_78:35; Isa_41:14; Isa_43:14). Hence the heavenly Witness, to whom Job looked for deliverance from his troubles, vindication of his aspersed character, emancipation from the power of the grave, and protection against his unseen adversary, whether God or Satan, was styled by him his Goel. And so is Christ the believer's Goel, who redeems him from guilt and condemnation (Rom_3:24; Gal_3:13; Gal_4:5; Eph_1:7; Tit_2:14), delivers him from the fear of death (Heb_2:14, Heb_2:15; Rom_8:23), and shields him from the wrath to come (1Th_1:10). Nay, of Christ, Job's Redeemer was a type in respect of being
(1) a living Redeemer, i.e. a Redeemer who did not require to come into existence, but even then was, and would continue to be, even though Job himself should disappear amid the shadows of the tomb;
(2) a Divine Redeemer, being called here expressly "God" (verse 26), as indeed Job's language throughout, in the above-cited passages, assumes; and
(3) a human Redeemer, since he was not only to be a Daysman (Job_9:33), but to appear or stand upon the earth (verse 25), and be visible to the eye of flesh;—all of which characteristics belong by preeminence to him who, while the Son of man (Joh_1:51; Heb_2:14), was yet "the true God and the Eternal Life" (1Jn_5:20), "in whom was Life" (Joh_2:3), and who still claims to be "the First and the Last and the Living One" who "was dead," but is now "alive again for evermore" (Rev_1:18).
2. The advent of this heavenly Redeemer to the earth.
(1) Job's language points unmistakably to a visible manifestation of this Divine-human Goel: "He shall stand," or "rise up'" i.e. to vindicate the cause of his people, the verb being that usually employed to designate the standing forth of a witness (Deu_19:15; Psa_27:12), or the rising up of a helper or deliverer (Psa_12:6; Psa_94:16; Isa_33:10).
(2) The scene of this interposition is said to be "on the earth;" literally, "upon the dust," meaning either of the ground or of the grave. As we cannot think Job believed himself to be the only individual in whose behalf the conquering Goal would arise, it is not to be supposed that he expected the apparition would take place exactly over his own particular tomb. Hence it is immaterial whether we supply "grave" or "ground." The phrase seems to point to a terrestrial appearance.
(3) The time of this epiphany is declared to be "in the latter days." The word means "the last one;" and the sense of the clause is that "he," the Goel, "shall arise upon the earth as the last one," as the great Survivor who stands forth when the human family has run its course, and pronounces the finally decisive word upon all time's controversies. Or, the word may be taken adverbially, as signifying "at last," at length, at some future date (in which sense some propose to read the clause, "upon the dust," i.e. over my dust, when I am dead), and as intimating Job's faith that in the last age (cf. the New Testament phrases, "the ends of the world" (1Co_10:11), "the, last time" (1Jn_2:18), for the whole period of the gospel dispensation) this Goel, or Kinsman Redeemer, should appear for the salvation of his people. Job's language will thus include a reference to both the first and second advents of Christ, which, rightly viewed, are not disconnected events, but rather two related acts or scenes, the first and the last, in one great manifestation or epiphany of God's eternal Son for the redemption of a lost world.
3. The saint's return to an embodied existence on the earth beside his Redeemer. The phrase, "in my flesh [literally, 'from, or out of, my flesh'] shall I see God" (verse 26), may mean no more than that after Job's "skin" or body was destroyed, i.e. after he had passed into the Hadean world, he would enjoy a spiritual vision of God, and it may readily be granted that such a rendering accords with the prevailing tone and current of Job's theology and Job's mind, neither of which was familiar with the idea of a resurrection-life beyond the unseen world of disembodied spirits. But Job at this moment was raised above the ordinary level of his spiritual consciousness. As already (Job_14:13-15) he had had a glimpse, transient but real, of such a life, so here it returns upon him once again with equal suddenness, but greater brightness—a glimpse of the happy land beyond the tomb, when, recalled to a physical existence on the earth, to which already his heavenly Goal had descended, looking out from his flesh he should see God; as if to emphasize which he adds, "Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another" (verse 27)—words which in themselves may not necessarily involve the resurrection of the body, but which, when taken in connection with the other considerations mentioned, tend not a little to confirm that interpretation. What Job only momentarily saw, and withal only dimly understood, has now been completely unveiled and expounded in the gospel, viz. the doctrine of a future resurrection.
4. The saint's beatific vision of God in the person of his Kinsman Redeemer. Job expected to see God in the Hadean world, according to some; on the earth, in the flesh, according to the interpretation just given. Such a vision of God meant for Job exactly what it means for the Christian—salvation, i.e. acceptance before God, protection by God, likeness to God, fellowship with God. In fullest measure such a vision of God will be enjoyed only in the resurrection-life (Joh_14:3; Joh_17:24; Php_3:20; Heb_9:28; 1Jn_3:2). In measure and degree only second to this will the saint behold God in the intermediate state (Luk_23:43; Php_1:23). Even now, in a real though spiritual sense, such a vision is enjoyed by believers (Mat_5:8).
5. The saint's earnest longing for this future vision of his heavenly Friend. Job describes his reins, i.e. his heart, as pining away or languishing for the coming of this glorious apocalypse. Job's friends had directed him to set his hopes on a return to temporal prosperity—to health, wealth, friends; in return, Job informs them that his soul desired nothing so much as God and his salvation. So the pre-Christian saints longed for the first advent of the Saviour, e.g. Abraham (Joh_8:56), Jacob (Gen_49:18), David (Psa_45:3, Psa_45:4), Simeon (Luk_2:25), Anna (Luk_2:38). So Christian believers anticipate his second coming (Rom_8:23; Rev_22:17).
III. THE APPENDIX TO THE INSCRIPTION; OR, THE EARNEST REMONSTRANCE OF A PERSECUTED SAINT. On two grounds Job dissuades his friends from attempting further to prove him guilty.
1. The wickedness of their conduct. Job's language (verse 28) points to the studied and systematic character of their attacks upon his integrity. "But ye say, How shall we persecute him, seeing that the root of the matter [i.e. the ground or occasion of such persecution] is in me?" Thinking they could discern in Job's guilt ample justification for such invective and condemnation as they hurled against him, they wickedly exercised their ingenuity in devising means to punish him, or at least to make him feel their displeasure. Another rendering, "How shall we find o, round of persecution in him?" presents their behaviour in a light extremely odious, recalling the sleepless malignity of Daniel's accusers (DanielDan_6:4, Dan_6:5). To take "the root of the matter" as signifying the fundamental principles of piety is to make their conduct absolutely diabolic, and on a par with that of the scribes and Pharisees towards the Saviour (Mat_12:14; Mat_22:15; Luk_11:54; Joh_8:6).
2. The danger of their conduct. It would inevitably involve them in retribution. "Be ye afraid of the sword" (verse 29), the sword being a symbol of such judicial recompense, an overwhelming retribution, the absence of the article pointing to what is "boundless, endless, terrific'" (Delitzsch), a certain retribution, such crimes as have incurred the vengeance of the sword, literally, the expiations of the sword, ever being, or carrying along with them, wrath, i.e. the glow of the Divine anger, a prophetic retribution, foreshadowing a still more awful punishment in the future world, "that ye may know there is a judgment."
Learn:
1. The duty of thankfulness to God for the blessings of civilization, especially for the invention of printing.
2. The illuminating power of sorrow, especially to a child of God.
3. The immortality that belongs to great ideas, especially to such as come through inspiration.
4. The sustaining influence of a good hope, especially the hope of a Redeemer.
5. The value of Christ's advents to the world, especially of his second advent in glory.
6. The greater light enjoyed by the gospel Church, especially since the resurrection of the Saviour.
I. INTRODUCTION: INDIGNANT CENSURE OF HIS FRIENDS AS MALICIOUS SUSPECTERS OF HIS INNOCENCE. (Verses 1-5.) "How long will ye trouble my soul, and crush me with words?" "Ten times," he says, speaking in round numbers, i.e. again and again, have they slandered him by attacks on h-is innocence; they are not ashamed to deafen him with their revilings. It is true, he again confesses (Job_6:24), he has sinned, but his sin remains with him alone; he is answerable to God alone, not to their unfeeling judgment. Is it their desire to magnify themselves—to play the part of great speakers and advocates, and bring home to him his disgrace by ingenious pleas? Vanity and self-conceit are at the bottom of much censoriousness; and Job here lays his finger upon the moral weakness of his self-constituted judges.
II. LAMENT OVER THE SUFFERING CAUSED HIM BY GOD. (Verses 6-12.) God has wronged him, and surrounded him with his nets, as a hunter takes his prey, depriving it of all means of escape (verse 6). The sufferer cries out, "Violence!" but no answer is given; and there is no justice in response to his cry for help (verse 7). His way is fenced in, and darkness is on his paths (verse 8; comp. Job_3:23; Job_13:27; Lam_3:7, Lam_3:9; Hos_2:6). God has stripped him of his honour and of his fair esteem in the eyes of men, and taken away the crown from his head (verse 9; comp. Job_29:14; Lam_5:16). "Honour ' and the "crown" are two expressions for the same thing (Isa_61:10; Isa_62:3). God pulls him down on every side, like a building devoted to destruction; roots out the hope of his restoration, like a tree (verse 10). His warlike bands—wounds, pains, and woes of every kind—come on, and make their way against him as against a besieged fortress (verses 11, 12; comp. Job_16:14). All this is a true description of the thoughts of the heart from which Divine help has been withdrawn. It is a sore conflict, none sorer, when the mind is driven in its agony to view God as an end my, treating us unmercifully, willing neither to hear nor to help. Job is tempted to think God unjust; one who promises the forgiveness of sins, yet does not remove the penalty; promises his presence to the suffering, yet seems not to be touched by our woes—nay, even to delight in them. "In so great and glowing flames of hell we must look to Christ alone, who was made in all things like to his brethren, and was tempted, that he might succour them that are tempted" (Brenz).
III. LAMENT OVER THE SUFFERING CAUSED HIM BY MAN. (Verses 13-20.) In such crises we turn to friendship for solace. But to Job this is denied. In six different forms he mentions his kindred and friends, only to complain of their coldness and alienation (verses 13, 14). His domestics, too (verse 15), to whom he had doubtless been a kind master, are become strange to him. His servant does not answer when he calls so that he is obliged to change parts with him, and beg his help as a favour (verse 16) His breath and diseased body make him offensive even to his wife, and sons, or "brethren' (verse 17). The impudent little boys of the street, like those who mocked Elisha (2Ki_2:23, sqq.), make a butt of him, indulging in sarcastic taunts when he rises to speak (verse 18). His bosom-friends abhor him, and those whom he had loved—Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar—turn against him as violent opponents (verse 19). His bones cleave to his skin and flesh, can be seen and felt through his emaciated flesh, and only the skin of his teeth, the thin film, has escaped the ravages of his fearful mainly. He can only just speak still, without his mouth being filled with boils and matter, as in the last stage of the disease (verse 20) Friends often fail in the time of sorest distress; they are summer-birds, and pass away when the colder weather sets in. Men are liars, fickle as the wind. Their alienation is ascribed to God, because he has caused the distress; if he had not caused the distress, they would have remained. Here, again, we are reminded that the child of God may be called to be conformed to the image of the Saviour's sufferings. He knew what it was to be deserted by all men, even his dearest disciples and closest adherents. So we are to learn to build no confidence on man, but on the living God alone, whom faith can hold eternally fast.
IV. RISE TO A BLESSED HOPE IN GOD, HIS ONLY REDEEMER AND AVENGER. (Verses 21-27.) This section is introduced by a woeful petition to his friends for compassion, "for the hand of God has touched him," alluding to the disease, which from its fearfulness was regarded as a stroke of God's hand; and is it not the office of friendship to lend its hand to heal or soothe (verse 21)? Why, on the contrary, do they persecute him as God, assuming an authority that is superhuman, and so behaving unnaturally to him? They are not "satisfied with his flesh," continually piercing and ploughing it with the envenomed tooth of slander (verse 22). The appeal seems to be in vain, and he turns once more to God (verse 23, sqq.). Oh that his words were written down, inscribed in a book or roll, that those to come might read the fervent, repeated protestations of his innocence! That they were engraven with an iron pen, or cast with lead, so as to remain an indelible and eternal record! And, so long as there is a God, this wish for the perpetuation of his testimony cannot be in vain. It has been fulfilled. "In a hundred languages of the earth it announces to this day. to all peoples this truth: the good man is not free from sufferings, but in the consciousness of his innocence and in faith in God, providence, and immortality, he finds a consolation which suffers him not to fail; and his waiting for a glorious issue of God's dark leadings will certainly be crowned" (Wohlforth). Verse 25, "And I know that my Redeemer lives." "Redeemer" is probably to be taken, not in the sense of blood-avenger, but in that of restorer of my honour, avenger of my honour; but the two meanings are connected. "And as Last One will he rise upon the dust." God is here viewed as he who will outlive all, especially in contrast to Job, now sinking into death. He will rise, stand up for Job's defence and deliverance, on the dust in which he shall soon be laid. Verse 26, "And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet from my flesh I shall behold Eloah." He is thinking of the time when he shall be treed from his wretched suffering and lacerated "flesh," and shall see God as a glorified spirit. Verse 27, "Whom I shall behold for myself," i.e. in my own person, "and my eyes shall see, and not a stranger." "My reins be consumed within me," in longing after this glorious view. It is an expression of the desire of the deepest, tenderest part of the man for this high consummation. To discuss the different theological interpretations of this passage does not come within the scope of this part of the Commentary. Perhaps the best is that which steers between two extremes, and is adopted by many eminent expositors of the present day. It is that Job does not here express the hope of a bodily resurrection after death, but of a contemplation of God in the other world in a spiritually glorified state. It is the hope of immortality, rather than that of resurrection, to which he rises, with such clearness and definiteness, above that ancient Israelitish idea of Sheol, which he himself has admitted in earlier discourses. It is a glorious confession of faith—one that, in a fuller sense, may well be that of the catholic Church. And once more the property and power of faith are exhibited in all their lustre. It cleaves to life in the very jaws of death; believes in heaven, even when hell is yawning at its feet; looks to God as the Redeemer even amidst anger and judgment; detects beneath seeming wrath his mercy; sees, under the appearance of the condemner, the Redeemer. Faith is here the "substance of things hoped for" (Heb_11:1). The best consolation in the trouble of death is that Christ is risen from the dead, and therefore we shall rise (Rom_8:11; 1Co_15:1-58.). God gives more to his servant, who shows himself inspired by such firm confidence towards him, than he could ask or understand.
V. SOLEMN WARNING TO HIS FRIENDS TO DESIST FROM THEIR ATTACKS. (Verses 28, 29.) "If ye think, How shall we persecute him? and (if ye think) the root of the 'matter is found in me"—that is, if you think the reason fur my sufferings is solely to be found in myself, in my sin—"be afraid of the sword," the avenging sword of God, "fur wrath falls in with the offences of the