The Trial of Job

Chapter 19

Job, complaining of his friends' cruelty, shows there is misery enough in him to feed their cruelty, 1-20. He craves pity, 21, 22. He believes the resurrection, 23-29.

1 Then Job answered and said,

2  "How long will you vex my soul/
and break me in pieces with words?

3  These ten times you have reproached me./
You are not ashamed that you make yourselves strange to me.

4  And if it is indeed that I have erred,/
my error remains with myself.

5  If indeed you will magnify yourselves against me/
and plead against me my reproach,

6  Know now that God has overthrown me/
and has encompassed me with his net.

7  Behold, I cry out of wrong, but I am not heard./
I cry aloud, but there is no judgment.

8  He has fenced up my way so that I cannot pass/
and he has set darkness in my paths.

9  He has stripped me of my glory/
and taken the crown from my head.

10 He has destroyed me on every side, and I am gone./
And my hope he has removed like a tree.

11 He has also kindled his wrath against me,/
and he counts me to him as one of his enemies.

12 His troops come together,/
raise up their way against me,/
and encamp around my tabernacle.

13 He has put my brothers far from me,/
and my acquaintances are truly estranged from me.

14 My kinsmen have failed,/
and my familiar friends have forgotten me.

15 Those who dwell in my house, and my women-servants, count me for a stranger./
I am a foreigner in their sight.

16 I called my servant, and he gave me no answer./
I entreated him with my mouth.

17 My breath is strange to my wife,/
and I entreated to the children of my mother's womb.

18 Young children even despise me./
I arose, and they spoke against me.

19 All my intimate friends abhorred me./
And those whom I loved have turned against me.

20 My bone cleaves to my skin and to my flesh,/
and I have escaped with the skin of my teeth.

21 Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O my friends,/
for the hand of God has touched me.

22 Why do you persecute me as God/
and are not satisfied with my flesh?

23 Oh that my words were now written!/
Oh that they were printed in a book!

24 Oh that they were engraved with an iron pen/
and lead in the rock forever!

25 For I know that my redeemer lives/
and that he will stand at the latter day upon the earth.

26 And after my skin is destroyed,/
yet in my flesh I shall see God,

27 Whom I shall see for myself,/
and my eyes shall behold, and not another./
My heart is consumed within me.

28 Therefore, you should say, 'Why do we persecute him,/
seeing the root of the matter is found in him?'

29 Be afraid of the sword,/
for wrath brings the punishments of the sword,/
so that you may know there is a judgment."

Commentary

Matthew Henry Commentary - Job, Chapter 19[➚]

Notes

John Gill's Chapter Summary:

This chapter contains Job's reply to Bildad's second speech, in which he complains of the ill usage of his friends, of their continuing to vex him, and to beat, and bruise, and break him in pieces with their hard words, and to reproach him, and carry it strange to him (verses 1-3); which he thought was very cruel, since, if he was mistaken, the mistake lay with himself (verse 4); and if they were determined to go on at this rate, he would have them observe, that his afflictions were of God, and therefore should take care to what they imputed them, since he could not get the reasons of them, or his cause to be heard, though he vehemently and importunately sought it (verses 5-7); and then gives an enumeration of the several particulars of his distress, all which he ascribes to God (verses 8-12); and he enlarges upon that part of his unhappy case, respecting the alienation of his nearest relations, most intimate acquaintance and friends, from him, and their contempt of him, and the like treatment he met with from his servants, and even young children (verses 13-19); all which, with other troubles, had such an effect upon him as to reduce him to a mere skeleton, and which he mentions to move the pity of these his friends, now conversing with him (verses 20-22); and yet after all, and in the midst of it, and which was his great support under his trials, he expresses his strong faith in his living Redeemer, who should appear on the earth in the latter day, and be his Savior, and in the resurrection of the dead through him, which he believed he should share in, and in all the happiness consequent on it; and he wishes this confession of his faith might be written and engraved, and be preserved on a rock forever for the good of posterity (verses 23-27); and closes the chapter with an expostulation with his friends, dissuading them from persecuting him any longer, since there was no reason for it in himself, and it might be attended with bad consequences to them (verses 28-29).

[v.7] - "I cry aloud, but there is no judgment" - Or, "I cry for help, but there is no justice."

[v.17] - "of my mother's womb" - From the Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary: "The 'my' forbids it being taken of his wife. Besides their children were dead. In Job 3:10 the same words 'my womb' mean, my mother's womb: therefore translate, 'and I must entreat (as a suppliant) the children of my mother's womb;' that is, my own brothers—a heightening of force, as compared with last clause of Job 19:16. Not only must I entreat suppliantly my servant, but my own brothers (Psalm 69:8). Here too, he unconsciously foreshadows Jesus Christ (John 7:5)."

[v.26] - From the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge: "After I shall awake, though this body is destroyed, yet out of my flesh I shall see God."

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