TRV
Translation
Complete Jewish Bible
but know that it's God who has put me in the wrong and closed his net around me.
Berean Standard Bible
then understand that it is God who has wronged me and drawn His net around me.
American Standard Version
Know now that God hath subverted me in my cause, And hath compassed me with his net.
World English Bible Messianic
know now that God has subverted me, and has surrounded me with his net.
Geneva Bible (1599)
Know nowe, that God hath ouerthrowen me, and hath compassed me with his net.
Young's Literal Translation
Know now, that God turned me upside down, And His net against me hath set round,
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In the KJVVerse 13,304 of 31,102
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Commentary on Job 19 verses 1–7
1 ¶ Then Job answered and said,
2 How long will ye vex my soul, and break me in pieces with words?
3 These ten times have ye reproached me: ye are not ashamed that ye make yourselves strange to me.
4 And be it indeed that I have erred, mine error remaineth with myself.
5 If indeed ye will magnify yourselves against me, and plead against me my reproach:
6 Know now that God hath overthrown me, and hath compassed me with his net.
7 Behold, I cry out of wrong, but I am not heard: I cry aloud, but there is no judgment.
Job's friends had passed a very severe censure upon him as a wicked man because he was so grievously afflicted; now here he tells them how ill he took it to be so censured. Bildad had twice begun with a How long (Job 8:2, Job 18:2), and therefore Job, being now to answer him particularly, begins with a How long too, Job 19:2. What is not liked is commonly thought long; but Job had more reason to think those long who assaulted him than they had to think him long who only vindicated himself. Better cause may be shown for defending ourselves, if we have right on our side, than for offending our brethren, though we have right on our side. Now observe here,
I. How he describes their unkindness to him and what account he gives of it. 1. They vexed his soul, and that is more grievous than the vexation of the bones, Psa 6:2, Psa 6:3. They were his friends; they came to comfort him, pretended to counsel him for the best; but with a great deal of gravity, and affectation of wisdom and piety, they set themselves to rob him of the only comfort he had now left him in a good God, a good conscience, and a good name; and this vexed him to his heart. 2. They broke him in pieces with words, and those were surely hard and very cruel words that would break a man to pieces: they grieved him, and so broke him; and therefore there will be a reckoning hereafter for all the hard speeches spoken against Christ and his people, Jde 1:15. 3. They reproached him, (Job 19:3), gave him a bad character and laid to his charge things that he knew not. To an ingenuous mind reproach is a cutting thing. 4. They made themselves strange to him, were shy of him now that he was in his troubles, and seemed as if they did not know him (Job 2:12), were not free with him as they used to be when he was in his prosperity. Those are governed by the spirit of the world, and not by any principles of true honour or love, who make themselves strange to their friends, or God's friends, when they are in trouble. A friend loves at all times. 5. They not only estranged themselves from him, but magnified themselves against him (Job 19:5), not only looked shy of him, but looked big upon him, and insulted over him, magnifying themselves to depress him. It is a mean thing, it is a base thing, thus to trample upon those that are down. 6. They pleaded against him his reproach, that is, they made use of his affliction as an argument against him to prove him a wicked man. They should have pleaded for him his integrity, and helped him to take the comfort of that under his affliction, and so have pleaded that against his reproach (as St. Paul, Co2 1:12); but, instead of that, they pleaded his reproach against his integrity, which was not only unkind, but very unjust; for where shall we find an honest man if reproach may be admitted for a plea against him?
II. How he aggravates their unkindness. 1. They had thus abused him often (Job 19:3): These ten times you have reproached me, that is, very often, as Gen 31:7; Num 14:22. Five times they had spoken, and every speech was a double reproach. He spoke as if he had kept a particular account of their reproaches, and could tell just how many they were. It is but a peevish and unfriendly thing to do so, and looks like a design of retaliation and revenge. We better befriend our own peace by forgetting injuries and unkindnesses than by remembering them and scoring them up. 2. They continued still to abuse him, and seemed resolved to persist in it: "How long will you do it?" Job 19:2, Job 19:5. "I see you will magnify yourselves against me, notwithstanding all I have said in my own justification." Those that speak too much seldom think they have said enough; and, when the mouth is opened in passion, the ear is shut to reason. 3. They were not ashamed of what they did, Job 19:3. They had reason to be ashamed of their hard-heartedness, so ill becoming men, of their uncharitableness, so ill becoming good men, and of their deceitfulness, so ill becoming friends: but were they ashamed? No, though they were told of it again and again, yet they could not blush.
III. How he answers their harsh censures, by showing them that what they condemned was capable of excuse, which they ought to have considered. 1. The errors of his judgment were excusable (Job 19:4): "Be it indeed that I have erred, that I am in the wrong through ignorance or mistake," which may well be supposed concerning men, concerning good men. Humanum est errare - Error cleaves to humanity; and we must be willing to suppose it concerning ourselves. It is folly to think ourselves infallible. "But be it so," said Job, "my error remaineth with myself," that is, "I speak according to the best of my judgment, with all sincerity, and not from a spirit of contradiction." Or, "If I be in an error, I keep it to myself, and do not impose it upon others as you do. I only prove myself and my own work by it. I meddle not with other people, either to teach them or to judge them." Men's errors are the more excusable if they keep them to themselves, and do not disturb others with them. Hast thou faith? Have it to thyself. Some give this sense of these words: "If I be in an error, it is I that must smart for it; and therefore you need not concern yourselves: nay, it is I that do smart, and smart severely, for it; and therefore you need not add to my misery by your reproaches." 2. The breakings out of his passion, though not justifiable, yet were excusable, considering the vastness of his grief and the extremity of his misery. "If you will go on to cavil at every complaining word I speak, will make the worst of it and improve it against me, yet take the cause of the complaint along with you, and weigh that, before you pass a judgment upon the complaint, and turn it to my reproach: Know then that God has overthrown me," Job 19:6. Three things he would have them consider: - (1.) That his trouble was very great. He was overthrown, and could not help himself, enclosed as in a net, and could not get out. (2.) That God was the author of it, and that, in it, he fought against him: "It was his hand that overthrew me; it is in his net that I am enclosed; and therefore you need not appear against me thus. I have enough to do to grapple with God's displeasure; let me not have yours also. Let God's controversy with me be ended before you begin yours." It is barbarous to persecute him whom God hath smitten and to talk to the grief of one whom he hath wounded, Psa 69:26. (3.) That he could not obtain any hope of the redress of his grievances, Job 19:7. He complained of his pain, but got no ease - begged to know the cause of his affliction, but could not discover it - appealed to God's tribunal for the clearing of his innocency, but could not obtain a hearing, much less a judgment, upon his appeal: I cry out of wrong, but I am not heard. God, for a time, may seem to turn away his ear from his people, to be angry at their prayers and overlook their appeals to him, and they must be excused if, in that case, they complain bitterly. Woe unto us if God be against us!
Matthew Henry (1662–1714) — Commentary on the Whole Bible. This section covers verses 1–7. Public domain.
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Origen of AlexandriaAD 253
FRAGMENTS ON JOB 13.15, 29
"And if I—let us suppose—had done things that should not have been done, even if I had been in such a condition, was it not necessary just the same that you felt ashamed while seeing my afflictions, disease, worms and loss of goods? But you approach me without commiserating with me and without feeling any sympathy for my adversities."
John ChrysostomAD 407
COMMENTARY ON JOB 19:3B-6A
Job says this as a concession. He always acts in this manner, by multiplying his concessions. He does not allow the discussion to languish on the same point but begins his fight again. Let us admit, he says, that you reprove my words for being foolish, vain and inopportune. You, nonetheless, had no reason to insult me, even if things were so, but it was necessary to respect my distress, to fear him who had struck me, to forgive because of the greatness of my misfortunes.“But alas! Since you magnify yourselves against me and insult me with reproach,” he says, “know then that it is the Lord that has troubled me.” What do these words mean? That it is necessary to have respect and fear? In my opinion, Job wants to suggest in this passage that if he was suffering so much, it was not because of his faults—in fact, if God strikes one, does one always suffer because of his faults? Not Job, and not many others—but in order to be tested and to achieve more victories.
Gregory the DialogistAD 604
36. O, how hard does the voice of the righteous man sound, suffering under the infliction of the rod! Which same, however, not pride, but grief gave vent to! Now he is not righteous, who gives up righteousness under sorrow; and blessed Job, because he had a meek spirit, did not sin even by a hard word. For, if we say that he did err by this voice, we make out that the devil accomplished what he purposed, when he said, Touch his bone and his flesh, and see if he have not blessed Thee to Thy face. [Job 2, 5] Therefore a serious question arises; for if he did not sin in that he says, Know now at least that God has not afflicted me with a just judgment; we agree to God’s having done something unjustly, which it is profane to say; but if he did sin, then the devil made appear concerning him the thing that he promised. And so it must be asserted both that God acted rightly in His dealings with blessed Job, and yet that blessed Job herein, viz. that he says that he ‘was not afflicted by a just judgment of God,’ did not speak an untruth, and that our old enemy in respect of that which he promised of sin in the blessed man did speak an untruth. For sometimes the words of the good are for this reason supposed wrong, because they are not ever considered in their interior signification. Thus blessed Job had turned his eyes to his own life, and he estimated the strokes which he was undergoing, and saw that it was not just that upon such a life such strokes should be dealt. And when he says that he was not afflicted by a just judgment, he spoke that with unreserved voice, which God in His own secresy had said concerning him to his adversary, thou movedst Me against him, to afflict him without cause [v. 3]. For what God expresses, that He ‘had afflicted blessed Job without cause,’ this blessed Job asserts again in the words that he was not ‘afflicted of the Lord by a just judgment?’ Wherein then did he sin, who was in nothing at odds with the sentence of his Maker?
37. But perhaps some one will say, that for us to speak that good concerning ourselves, which the Judge may have said in secret concerning us, cannot be done without sin. For he whom the Judge praises, it cannot be doubted, is justly praiseworthy; but if he in his own person praises himself, his righteousness is henceforth supposed to be no longer deserving of praise; and this is said rightly, if what the just Judge delivers in impartial sentence, the person in question should venture to say afterwards concerning himself in pride of heart. For if he himself too continuing in a humble frame, when the occasion or his grief brings it out, has uttered good that is true in his own praise, he has not departed from the line of righteousness, in so far as he was not at all at variance with truth.
38. Whence Paul the Apostle also related many brave things of himself for the edification of his disciples, but he did not commit sin by relating these things, in that both by an undeniable attestation, and a humble mind, he did not depart from the pathway of truth; and so let blessed Job, conscious of his own life being just, say that he is not afflicted by a just judgment; neither yet does he sin by that voice, wherein he is not at variance with His Maker, in that he whom God ‘smote without cause,’ himself also asserts that he was not ‘afflicted by a just judgment.’ But again there arises another question, which I remember has been already solved in the beginning of this work, viz. whereas Almighty God does nothing without cause, why does He bear witness that He had afflicted blessed Job without cause? For our just Creator by those many strokes inflicted upon blessed Job did not aim to do away with evil qualities in him, but to increase his merits; and so that was just, which He did in the heightening of his good deserts; but it did not seem equitable, because it was thought to be the punishing of instances of sin. Now blessed Job believed that sins of his doing were obliterated by those scourges, not that his merits were added to, and therefore he calls it ‘not a just judgment,’ because he tests his life side by side with the scourges: thus, if the life and the scourges be weighed in the scales, that was not equal dealing, which blessed Job, as I have said, supposed to be done to him in the wrathfulness of severity; but if the mercifulness of the Judge be looked to, seeing that by the punishment of the just man the merits of his life are heightened, it was an equal or rather a merciful judgment: therefore at once Job spoke what was true, so long as he balanced his life with the stroke; and God did not afflict Job with an unjust judgment, in that he heightened his merits by the stroke; and the devil did not achieve what he promised; seeing that blessed Job, amidst words which sound hard, was neither removed from a true sentence nor a humble mind. But perhaps we shall understand these words of blessed Job less well, if we are not acquainted with the sentence of the Judge; Who, when He was delivering sentence between the two parties, says to the friends of Job; Ye have not spoken of Me the thing that is right, as My servant Job hath. [Job 42, 7] Who then is there so foolish [ABCD ‘tam.’] in mind as to own that blessed Job had been guilty in his way of speaking, when he is declared to have spoken rightly by the very voice of the Judge itself? Which same voice, indeed, if we refer to the person of Holy Church, we not unsuitably apply it to her weak members, which while, in the season of her persecution, they weigh both her merits and her scourges, forasmuch as they see that the unjust thrive, and the just perish, have no notion that this is just. Now it is well added by the voice of the blessed man,
And compassed me with his scourges.
39. For it is one thing to be smitten, and another thing to be ‘compassed with scourges.’ Thus, we are smitten with scourges, when even in our sorrows we have a consolation derived from other sources; for when affliction lies so heavy on us that the spirit can no longer take breath by consolation from anyone thing; we are now no longer smitten only, but even ‘compassed with scourges,’ in that we are every way surrounded by the rod of affliction. Thus Paul had been compassed with scourges, when he said, Without were fightings, within were fears. [2 Cor. 7, 5] He had been compassed with scourges, when he said, In perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness [2 Cor. 11, 26], with the other particulars, which he so enumerates, as to show that he no where had rest. But when Holy Church is ‘compassed with the scourges’ of her tribulation, all the weak in her are brought down in the fall of littleness of mind, so that they now suppose themselves disregarded, in proportion as they see that they are the more slowly heard with effect.
Source: Quotations drawn from early Church Fathers and historical Christian theologians (AD 100–1500). Some quotes address the surrounding passage context rather than this verse alone.
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SUMMARY
Job 19:6 encapsulates Job's profound anguish and his conviction that God Himself is the direct cause of his immense suffering and ruin. In a moment of raw despair, Job perceives his calamities not as random misfortune or the work of an adversary, but as a deliberate act of divine hostility, as if the Almighty has violently overturned his life and ensnared him in an inescapable trap. This verse is a poignant expression of Job's central struggle with the mystery of suffering and his bold, yet anguished, accusation against the divine.
CONTEXT
EXPOSITION AND ANALYSIS
Key Word Analysis
Verse Breakdown
Literary Devices
Job 19:6 employs powerful Imagery and Metaphor to convey Job's profound despair and sense of divine victimization. The phrase "hath overthrown me" uses the Metaphor of a violent, destructive force, akin to a building being dismantled or a city being leveled, to describe the complete ruin and perversion of Job's life and fortune. This is further intensified by the Metaphor of being "compassed me with his net," which casts God in the role of a relentless hunter and Job as the helpless, ensnared prey. This imagery evokes a visceral sense of inescapable entrapment and utter vulnerability. The intensity of Job's accusation can also be seen as a form of Hyperbole, as he attributes the entirety of his suffering directly to God's active malice, even though the reader knows from the prologue that Satan is the immediate instigator. This raw, accusatory language functions as a profound Lament, a common biblical genre where the suffering individual pours out their unvarnished emotions and grievances before God, seeking understanding or intervention.
THEOLOGICAL AND THEMATIC CONNECTIONS
Job 19:6 is a profound theological statement, albeit one born of extreme anguish and a limited understanding of the cosmic drama unfolding. It directly confronts the prevailing retribution theology of Job's time, which posited a direct, simplistic correlation between sin and suffering. Job's assertion that God has "overthrown" him challenges the notion that only the wicked suffer, forcing a deeper exploration of divine justice and sovereignty. While the book's prologue reveals Satan as the immediate instigator, Job's perception highlights the human tendency to attribute ultimate causality to God, even when His ways are mysterious. This verse underscores the biblical theme that God's ways are often inscrutable to humanity, and that true faith may involve wrestling with God's perceived actions rather than neatly explaining them away. It also validates the human experience of feeling targeted by circumstances, prompting a search for meaning and purpose in suffering, and demonstrating that honest lament is a legitimate expression of faith.
REFLECTION AND APPLICATION
Job 19:6 offers a powerful validation of the human experience of profound despair and the right to express even the most challenging and accusatory thoughts to God. In moments of intense suffering, when circumstances feel overwhelming and inexplicable, it is natural to feel as though God Himself is against us, or has abandoned us. Job's raw honesty reminds us that authentic faith does not require a sanitized presentation of our emotions; rather, it invites us to bring our full, unvarnished selves before the Almighty, including our anger, confusion, and accusations. This verse encourages us to cultivate empathy for those who are suffering, recognizing that their perception of God's role in their pain may be deeply personal and not always aligned with our theological frameworks. Ultimately, while Job's understanding of God's actions was incomplete, his willingness to wrestle with God in the midst of his "net" of suffering paved the way for a deeper, more resilient faith that transcended mere intellectual assent, demonstrating that faith can mature through struggle.
Questions for Reflection
FAQ
Does Job 19:6 mean God was actually against Job?
Answer: From Job's limited human perspective, yes, he profoundly felt that God was the direct agent of his suffering. The KJV's "overthrown me" and "compassed me with his net" vividly express his personal conviction that God had violently ruined his life and trapped him. However, the book's prologue in Job 1-2 reveals a crucial cosmic context: Satan was the immediate instigator of Job's trials, operating within the sovereign permission of God. Job, unaware of this heavenly dialogue, could only attribute his inexplicable suffering to the ultimate sovereign power he knew, which was God. Therefore, while Job felt God was against him, the full narrative of the book reveals God's ultimate purpose was not malice but the vindication of Job's integrity and a deeper revelation of God's own character and wisdom, as seen in Job 42:5-6. This verse highlights the profound tension between human perception and divine reality in the face of suffering, reminding us that God's ways are higher than our ways (Isaiah 55:8-9).
CHRIST-CENTERED FULFILLMENT
Job's agonizing cry in Job 19:6 foreshadows the ultimate suffering of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who truly felt "overthrown" and "compassed with a net" for the sake of humanity. While Job was innocent yet suffered, Jesus, the perfectly innocent Lamb of God, voluntarily entered into the deepest human suffering, experiencing the full weight of divine judgment for sin that was not His own. On the cross, Jesus cried out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46), echoing Job's sense of divine abandonment and perceived hostility. He was truly "compassed" by the net of sin, death, and the wrath of God, not as a victim of arbitrary fate, but as the willing sacrifice to redeem humanity from its own spiritual entrapment (Galatians 3:13). Through His suffering and death, Jesus breaks the "net" of sin and death for all who believe, offering freedom and new life where Job could only lament his entrapment (Hebrews 2:14-15). Thus, Job's lament, while deeply personal, points to the greater, redemptive suffering of Christ, who transforms the experience of being "overthrown" into the pathway to ultimate victory and reconciliation with God (2 Corinthians 5:21).