Job 19:29

Be ye afraid of the sword,.... Not of the civil magistrate, nor of a foreign enemy, but of the avenging sword of divine justice; lest God should whet the glittering sword of his justice, and his hand

Be ye afraid of the sword: for wrath bringeth the punishments of the sword, that ye may know there is a judgment. Be ye afraid of the sword - the punishment, about to be inflicted by the coming Judge.

Of the sword, i.e. of some considerable judgment to be inflicted on you, which is called the sword; as , and oft elsewhere. Do not please yourselves with such pretences and crafty evasions, as if the blame were wholly in me, not in you: God will not be mocked by you; he sees and will punish your most unrighteous and uncharitable judgment of me, and dealing with me. Wrath bringeth the punishment of the sword: for that wrath or fury which is in your hearts, and breaks out of your lips against me, doth deserve, and will certainly bring upon you, the punishment (Heb. punishments or iniquities; but iniquity is oft put for punishment) of the sword, i.e. a dreadful judgment from God. Or without any supplement, except that which is generally understood, for wrath (that sin of wrath or rage against a man, especially against one in affliction) is an iniquity (Heb. iniquities, the plural number being used by way of aggravation; as , and elsewhere: or, of the iniquities; the Hebrew prefix mem being here understood, as it is in many other places) of the sword, i.e. one of those iniquities which use to be, or are fit to be, punished by the Sword, i.e. by some eminent judgment; as , an iniquity of the judges, is an iniquity to be punished by the judges, as our translation hath it. That ye may know: the sense is either, 1. This admonition I now give you, that you may know it in time, and for your good, that you may seriously consider and prevent it. Or, 2. This judgment will come upon you, that you may be taught by your own sad and costly experience what you would not learn without it. That there is a judgment, i.e. that there will be a time of judgment, when God will call men to an account for all their hard speeches and miscarriages, and particularly for their rash and uncharitable censures of their brethren, , either in this life, or at that last and dreadful day of the general resurrection (of which he spoke , &c.) and judgment. God sees, and observes, and will judge all your words and actions, and therefore do not flatter yourselves with vain hopes of impunity.

Job 19:29 Be ye afraid of the sword: for wrath [bringeth] the punishments of the sword, that ye may know [there is] a judgment.Ver. 29. Be ye afraid of the sword] Heb. Be ye afraid for yourselves, from the face of the sword; God’ s sore, and great, and strong sword, Isaiah 27:1, that hangeth over your heads, as it were, by a twined thread. Oh tremble at God’ s judgments, while they hang in the threatenings. He that trembleth not in hearing shall be cut to pieces in feeling, as that martyr said: God’ s sword contemneth the rod, Ezekiel 21:13. If Job be under his rod, they that persecute him, under what pretence soever, shall feel the dint of his sword, or of his deep displeasure. Now it is a fearful thing to fall into the punishing hands of the living God. And cruelty toward others, toward his own especially, he will be sure to punish, for he is gracious, Exodus 22:27. Fugite ergo a facie gladii, Flee, therefore, from the face of the sword, so the Vulgate rendereth this text. The sword is an instrument of death; it hath its name in Hebrew from laying waste; and the face or faces of the sword, show that Divine vengeance is near at hand. It is a mercy to men that God whets his sword before he smites, and first takes hold on judgment before his judgments take hold on us, Deuteronomy 32:41 (Aug. in Psal. XXX.). For wrath bringeth the punishments of the sword] It is from displeased love that God chastiseth his children; but from fierce wrath that he plagueth his enemies: some of these God punisheth here, lest his provideuce, but not all, lest his patience and promise of judgment, should be called into question. That we may know that there is judgment] Wherein they that rashly judge others shall be judged by God, Matthew 7:1. And this Job’ s friends knew well enough, but well weighed not, to scare themselves from rash censurings. He reminds them, therefore, of their danger, and labours to prevent their sorrow, who had so much caused his. See the like in Jeremiah 26:15, in our Saviour, in St Stephen, &c., and learn to be similarly charitable; though your success be no better than Job’ s was, upon whom, in lieu of this love, they fell more foul than before, as will appear by their following discourses.

(29) Be ye afraid . . .—Job threatens his friends with that condign punishment of which they regarded him as a conspicuous example.

Verse 29. Be ye afraid of the sword] Of God's judgments. For wrath bringeth] Such anger as ye have displayed against me, God will certainly resent and punish. That ye may know there is a judgment.] That ye may know that God will judge the world; and that the unequal distribution of riches and poverty, afflictions and health, in the present life, is a proof that there must be a future judgment, where evil shall be punished and virtue rewarded. IT would not be fair, after all the discussion of the preceding verses in reference to the two grand opinions and modes of interpretation instituted by learned men, not to inform the reader that a third method of solving all difficulties has been proposed, viz., that Job refers to a Divine conviction which he had just then received, that God would appear in the most evident manner to vindicate his innocence, and give the fullest proofs to his friends and to the world that his afflictions had not been sent as a scourge for his iniquities. Dr. Kennicott was the proposer of this third mode of solving these difficulties, and I shall give his method in his own words. "These five verses, though they contain but twelve lines, have occasioned controversies without number, as to the general meaning of Job in this place, whether he here expressed his firm belief of a resurrection to happiness after death, or of a restoration to prosperity during the remainder of his life. "Each of these positions has found powerful as well as numerous advocates; and the short issue of the whole seems to be, that each party has confuted the opposite opinion, yet without establishing its own. For how could Job here express his conviction of a reverse of things in this world, and of a restoration to temporal prosperity, at the very time when he strongly asserts that his miseries would soon be terminated by death? See Job 6:11; Job 7:21; Job 17:11-15; Job 19:10, and particularly in Job 7:7: O remember that my life is wind; mine eye shall no more see good. "Still less could Job here express a hope full of immortality, which sense cannot be extorted from the words without every violence. And as the possession of such belief is not to be reconciled with Job's so bitterly cursing the day of his birth in Job 3:1-3, so the declaration of such belief would have solved at once the whole difficulty in dispute. "But if neither of the preceding and opposite opinions can be admitted, if the words are not meant to express Job's belief either of a restoration or of a resurrection, what then are we to do? It does not appear to me that any other interpretation has yet been proposed by the learned; yet I will now venture to offer a third interpretation, different from both the former, and which, whilst it is free from the preceding difficulties, does not seem liable to equal objections.

29. for wrath bringeth the punishments of the sword] This translation seems to assume that “wrath” here is that of men, such wrath as Job’s friends shewed towards him. But the word is too strong to be taken in this sense. The Divine “wrath” or fury is meant. The phrase “punishments of the sword” means most naturally, the punishments inflicted by the sword. The whole expression would thus mean, for wrath (i. e. in wrath, or, wrathful) are the punishments of the sword—the “sword” being as before God’s judicial sword. Others render, “transgressions of the sword,” i. e. such transgressions as bring down the Divine sword; but the phrase “transgressions of the sword are wrath,” i. e. have to bear wrath as their reward or chastisement, (Delitzsch) is exceedingly cumbrous. that … there is a judgment] The reference is not to any final or general judgment, but to the fact that God does in truth judge and punish injustice, such as the friends were guilty of; cf. Job 13:10 seq. The translation assumes a form of the relative conjunction that which nowhere else occurs in the Book of Job, and there may be some fault in the text. Ewald and others by a slight change of spelling obtain the meaning, that ye may know the Almighty.

Be ye afraid of the sword - Of the sword of justice, of the wrath of God. In taking such views, and using such language, you ought to dread the vengeance of God, for he will punish the guilty.

29. Be ye afraid — A continuation (the apodosis) of the preceding verse.