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Job_19:25-27
In replying to Bildad’s harsh and passionate invective, Job indirectly rebukes the hardness of his friends towards him, by a pathetic account of his deplorable condition, in which he introduces some humiliating and painful circumstances which have not before appeared. He contends that his sufferings were not to be ascribed to himself, but to God, who had overwhelmed him with calamities, though he had done nothing to deserve them and though he had often desired to be brought to trial. Perceiving, however, that he had made no impression upon them, the afflicted patriarch suddenly raises his voice, and, with great elevation of spirit, expresses his ardent desire that the words he had uttered in his own defence should be recorded in some enduring memorial. It is clear that the loss of character is involved in the imputations which the friends shower upon him. All other evils are in his view light to this; and what he desires is not so much deliverance from his misery, as the vindication of his integrity. And thus he practically refutes the, to him unknown, insinuations of Satan, that his piety was founded on selfish motives. So now, not satisfied with the tardy vindication which he had previously indicated, he kindles to higher inspirations, and declares his assured conviction, that low, miserable, and despised as he now is, he shall yet live to see the Lord himself appear to justify him from these aspersions. He also warns his friends that a time will come when they shall be put to shame for their behavior towards him—“know ye that judgment cometh.” This is therefore one of several passages dispersed through the book, which show that the sacred writer kept the final interposition of the Lord in view, and desired, by such intimations, to prepare our minds for it.
From this statement the reader will perceive the view we have been led to entertain of this celebrated text—“I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.” The words in italics do not exist in the original, but are supplied by the translator to complete the sense he supposed the declaration to convey.
It is well known that the popular view of this passage is, that it declares Job’s belief in a future Redeemer—that is, in Christ; and in the resurrection from the dead. We have carefully weighed every word of this text, and explored every shade of opinion with reference to them, and we feel constrained, not without pain, though without reluctance, for no one ought to be reluctant to entertain the truth, to follow the general tendency of modern (yet not wholly modern) interpretation, which shows that the view is founded on mistranslation or misconception, and that the words describe only an expectation, which the close of the book declares to have been fulfilled.
The translation, as it stands, undoubtedly affords ground for, and was intended to express, the popular interpretation. The translators entertained that view, and without doing intentional or actual violence to the passage, or designing to make a forced translation, have allowed their feelings to give a complexion to the passage which the original does not necessarily convey. Yet, if one picks out the words which they have introduced to complete that sense, as day, worms, and body; and if he exchanges for other terms the words “Redeemer,” and “latter day,” which have, from the Gospel, acquired a definite theological sense which did not in the Old Testament belong to them, he will find the apparent distinctness of the allusion to our Lord and to the resurrection fade away. The word “Redeemer,” which is now technically always used to denote the Messiah, has in the original a much wider signification, and might be, and is in other versions, rendered by different terms. The Hebrew word is Goel, and is applied to one who redeems a field or lands, by paying back the calculated value; to the avenger of blood, as the redeemer or vindicator of violated rights; to a kinsman, as one on whom these rights devolved. So Ruth calls Boaz her Goel, translated “near kinsman;” and it is applied to God himself as the vindicator and deliverer of his people, and especially as their redeemer from the bondage of Egypt and the captivity of Babylon. Hence, although “Redeemer” is a proper rendering, yet seeing the technical sense it has in later times acquired in reference to Christ, misconception would be prevented in such cases as this by the use of the equivalent terms, such as “vindicator” or “avenger”—which are, in fact, usually adopted in recent versions. So of “the latter day;” this phrase has acquired a distinct signification in Christian theology, which ought to have precluded its insertion here. Besides, day does not exist in the original, and the word means no more than hereafter, or after this. Thus, therefore, the first of the two verses plainly means no more than, “I know that my vindicator (or avenger) liveth, and shall hereafter appear upon the earth;” and the precise determination of the sense of this must result from the interpretation given to the ensuing verse; for if in that verse Job speaks of his death and future resurrection, then the vindicator or redeemer may be our Lord, and the hereafter the day of judgment.
But here we have the “worms” and “body,” which do not exist in the Hebrew, the former of which at least serves to fix the idea of the death and decomposition of the body, without which it could not be made to appear that the subsequent restoration was a resurrection from the dead. In fact, no modern translator has preserved the word “worms,” or has used any other word which fixes the idea of death to the terms employed. Nothing of this occurs even in versions made by those who believe death and the resurrection of the dead to be intended. We may introduce some modern English translations below, by which it will be seen that the translators substantially agree in their versions, although the first is the only one who sees death and the resurrection to be denoted. Note: “And that after this my skin shall have been pierced through, still in my flesh shall I see God.”—Lee.
“And though this skin of mine is thus corroded,
Yet in my flesh shall I see God.”—Wemyss.
“And though with my skin this body be wasted away
Yet in my flesh shall I see God.”—Noyes.
“And though after my skin this flesh be destroyed,
Yet even without my flesh shall I see God.”—Barnes.
Let it be remembered that Job’s was a painful and disgusting cutaneous disease, and that he frequently alludes to the state of his skin. Indeed he had but just before said that he had escaped only with “the skin of his teeth.” What therefore more natural than for him to say, that although after his skin his very body were wasted away to a mere skeleton, yet he would entertain the assured conviction that in his flesh—that is, before he died, or else, in flesh restored to soundness, he should see God interposing in his behalf, and taking his side in the controversy?
Remembering that the expectation thus defined was realized, it is difficult to resist—and why should we resist?—the conviction, that the sacred writer intended the whole passage to have a relation to the concluding part of the poem, where the Almighty is represented as appearing and vindicating the character of Job, by calling him four times his servant; by rebuking his calumniators, and pardoning them through his intercession; by declaring that he, and not his friends, had spoken of Him what was right (in regard to the question whether misery was a proof of guilt); and by giving him temporal blessings in twofold greater abundance than before his affliction.
We should be sorry to deprive the book of the unity which this view of the present passage conveys. At the beginning, the Lord appears as Job’s vindicator from the aspersions of Satan. Job knows not this, but here, about the middle of the poem, he declares his conviction that God would at length appear as his vindicator from the aspersions of his friends—his redeemer from dishonor and reproach; and in the end the Lord accordingly does so appear, justifying the expectation of his servant, and bringing the book to the close, of which that expectation so emphatically forewarned us. The poem is thus rendered complete in all its parts. It has a distinct beginning, middle, and end. But the middle, which seems so essential to its completeness, is taken out, if we refer the passage before us to any expectation, which the book itself does not declare to have been eventually realized.
Most of the reasons lately brought forward, Note: Fifth Week—Thursday. from the nature of the argument, and the like, against the probability of the doctrine of the resurrection being produced, apply equally here. Those reasons appear to show the improbability that this doctrine should be produced in any argument like this, even if it were known and believed. Many have questioned that, in the early age to which the book belongs, there existed any knowledge of a life to come, or of an atonement for sin. That they had the former knowledge we are firmly persuaded, and shall soon have further occasion to show; and that it was scarcely possible for the latter to have been unknown to them, we have had opportunities of declaring. Note: First Series: Third Week—Friday; Eighth Week—Sunday; Ninth Week—Tuesday. It is customary to confound the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead with that of the immortality of the soul. But they are quite distinct, and multitudes have in all ages believed in a future state who had no notion of a resurrection. Job might, and we apprehend that he did, believe in a future state, without knowing of a resurrection. It is only in the later Scriptures of the Old Testament that we find it produced; but it was reserved for our Lord and his apostles to open this doctrine fully, and give to it, under the new dispensation, that fundamental importance and essential illustration which it derived from our Lord’s own resurrection, and which it could not possibly have possessed before.