Job 19
Job Rebukes His Cruel Friends 1–6
God Is My Adversary 7–12
Total Isolation and Physical Decay 13–22
My Redeemer Lives 23–27
A Warning of Judgment 28–29
Bible text: American Standard Version (1901) · Public domain
Study Notes for Job 19
Verse 2
How long will ye vex my soul — Job takes up Bildad's own opening, 'How long will it be ere ye make an end of words?' (Job 18:2). 'Vex' is yagah, to grieve; 'soul' is nephesh, the whole person. Words can wound like weapons: 'his words were softer than oil, yet were they drawn swords' (Ps 55:21).
Verse 3
These ten times — 'Ten' is a round number for repeated times; Jacob says Laban 'changed my wages ten times' (Gen 31:7). 'Reproached' is kalam, properly to wound, then to taunt. 'Make yourselves strange' is hakar, to treat as a stranger; the friends who came to comfort now stand aloof.
Verse 4
mine error remaineth with myself — Shagah is to stray, and meshugah a mistake or lapse. Job grants the point only for argument: any fault is his own to answer for, as 'thou alone shalt bear it' (Prov 9:12) and 'every man shall bear his own burden' (Gal 6:5). It gives the friends no right to condemn.
Verse 6
compassed me with his net — Matsud is a hunter's net. Bildad had said the wicked is 'cast into a net by his own feet' (Job 18:8); Job answers that God has spread the net around him. Jeremiah's lament speaks alike: 'he hath spread a net for my feet' (Lam 1:13). 'Overthrown' is avath, to wrest or pervert.
Verse 7
I cry out of wrong — Chamas is violence. The complaint matches Habakkuk's: 'O LORD, how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear! even cry out unto thee of violence' (Hab 1:2). 'Judgment' is mishpat, a just verdict; Elihu later quotes Job as saying 'God hath taken away my judgment' (Job 34:5).
Verse 9
the crown from my head — Atarah is a crown or wreath. Job had once said 'my judgment was as a robe and a diadem' (Job 29:14), and his 'glory' (kabod, weight, honour) 'was fresh in me' (Job 29:20). Here God has stripped both, as Judah later laments, 'The crown is fallen from our head' (Lam 5:16).
Verse 10
mine hope hath he removed like a tree — Tiqvah, hope, is literally a cord, an attachment, here pulled up like a tree. 'Removed' is nasa, the verb for pulling up tent pins to break camp. The figure Job used of the wicked ('wickedness shall be broken as a tree', Job 24:20) is here used of his own hope.
Verse 11
one of his enemies — Tsar is an adversary, one who presses in. Job has said the same before: 'Wherefore hidest thou thy face, and holdest me for thine enemy?' (Job 13:24); Elihu repeats it (Job 33:10). Jeremiah's lament has the same thought of the Lord: 'The Lord was as an enemy' (Lam 2:5).
Verse 13
He hath put my brethren far from me — Rachaq, to remove far off, the verb of 'Thou hast put away mine acquaintance far from me' (Ps 88:8). The righteous sufferer of Ps 69:8 is likewise 'a stranger unto my brethren'. Early Christian writers read vv.13–15 of Christ, of whom John says 'his own received him not' (John 1:11).
Verse 15
count me for a stranger — Two words for outsider stand together: zur, one turned aside, and nokri, a foreigner. Those who 'dwell' (gur, sojourn) in his house now treat him so. Once he could say 'The stranger did not lodge in the street: but I opened my doors to the traveller' (Job 31:32).
Verse 17
My breath is strange to my wife — Ruach is breath or wind; Job had already said 'My breath is corrupt' (Job 17:1). His wife's earlier counsel was 'curse God, and die' (Job 2:9). 'The children's sake of mine own body' is literally the sons of his beten, womb or belly: his own offspring.
Verse 20
the skin of my teeth — Or, skin, is the same word as in 'My bone cleaveth to my skin', echoing Ps 102:5, 'my bones cleave to my skin'. 'Escaped' is malat, to slip away. The phrase pictures a bare escape with almost nothing left. Satan's 'Skin for skin' (Job 2:4) uses the same Hebrew word.
Verse 21
the hand of God hath touched me — Naga, to touch, is the verb of Satan's challenge: 'put forth thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh' (Job 2:5). Job reads the blow as God's own. 'Have pity' is chanan, to show favour, said twice; he asks what he said friends owe: 'To him that is afflicted pity should be shewed from his friend' (Job 6:14).
Verse 22
persecute me as God — Radaph is to pursue, hunt. Job has complained that God 'huntest me as a fierce lion' (Job 10:16); the friends now pursue him in the same way. 'Satisfied' is saba, to be filled as with food. The pattern recurs in Ps 69:26: 'they persecute him whom thou hast smitten'.
Verse 23
printed in a book — 'Printed' is chaqaq, to cut or engrave, not set in type; sepher is a written document. Job wants his plea kept for later readers, as Isaiah is told to 'note it in a book, that it may be for the time to come for ever and ever' (Isa 30:8). At the end he asks that his adversary 'had written a book' (Job 31:35).
Verse 25
my redeemer liveth — Go'el (from ga'al) is the kinsman who buys back and pleads a relative's cause: 'their redeemer is mighty; he shall plead their cause' (Prov 23:11). He 'shall stand' (qum) 'at the latter day'; 'earth' here is aphar, dust. Christian writers read it of Christ.
Verse 26
in my flesh shall I see God — Basar, flesh, and chazah, to gaze at. After the destruction of skin and body Job expects to behold God himself. The hope is that of 'I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake' (Ps 17:15), and of 'we shall see him as he is' (1 John 3:2).
Verse 27
and not another — The Hebrew is zur, stranger, the word of vv.13, 15 and 17: the man every household member treats as a stranger will see God with his own eyes, not as a stranger. 'Reins' (kilyah) are the kidneys, the seat of inmost feeling; they 'be consumed' while hope stays, as 'my flesh and my heart faileth' (Ps 73:26).
Verse 28
the root of the matter — Sheresh, root, with davar, matter or word: the real ground of the case, found in Job, namely his faith. A parallel is 'in him there is found some good thing toward the LORD' (1 Kings 14:13), the same verb 'found'. 'Persecute' is radaph, as in v.22.
Verse 29
Be ye afraid of the sword — Gur here is to dread. Wrath draws on 'the punishments of the sword', and judgment (din) is certain: 'God shall bring every work into judgment' (Eccl 12:14). Job turns the friends' own claim on them; Christ says likewise, 'with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged' (Matt 7:2).