Job 19

Job answers Bildad by pleading for pity. He feels attacked by his friends and by God, and abandoned by family, servants and even children. Then, out of deep darkness, he declares that his Redeemer lives and that he will see God.

Job 19:1-2

Job turns on his friends. Their long speeches have not comforted him but have worn him down. Words can wound as deeply as blows, and he asks how long they will keep it up.

BSA: crush (“break, bruise”): Their words are like blows that bruise, not medicine that heals.

Job 19:3

Job says they have insulted him again and again. ‘Ten times’ means many times, not an exact count. He is amazed that they feel no shame in treating a suffering man so harshly.

BSA: shamelessly (“without guilt, impudently”): They attack him with no embarrassment and no sign of conscience.

Job 19:4-5

Job says that even if he has erred, that is his own business and does not harm them. Yet they climb above him and use his shame as proof against him. Suffering gives no one the right to look down on another.

BSA: disgrace (“reproach, shame”): They treat his misery as evidence of guilt and make it a charge against him.

Job 19:6

Job insists that God has wronged him and trapped him as a hunter traps an animal. He does not curse God, but he honestly says that he does not understand. Job is not describing God as he truly is, only as he feels Him.

BSA: net (“a fortress or stronghold”): Whether net or stronghold, the picture is of being enclosed with no way out.

Job 19:7

Job cries out against injustice and no one answers. He does not say his cry is empty, only that nothing seems to come of it. Many believers have known this silence, and Scripture records it honestly.

BSA: Violence (“cruelty, injustice”): He is crying out as a wronged man appealing for a hearing.

Job 19:8-9

Job’s life is like a road walled off and cast into darkness. God has taken away his honor, like a crown from a king’s head. The man once respected in the gate now has no standing.

BSA: honor (“glory, reputation”): What Job lost was his good name as well as his possessions.

See also: Job 29:7-10.

Job 19:10

Job feels broken down like a wall, torn apart on every side. His hope has been pulled up by the roots like a tree. Unlike a tree cut down, one pulled up by the roots has no hope of sprouting again.

BSA: uproots (“plucks up, removes”): His hope is torn out completely, with nothing left in the ground.

See also: Job 14:7-9.

Job 19:11

Job feels that God’s anger is burning against him, and that he is treated as an enemy. The reader knows from chapters 1 and 2 that this is not the case. Job speaks from what his pain makes him feel.

BSA: enemies (“adversaries, those who oppose Him”): Job feels that God has placed him among those He opposes.

Job 19:12

Job pictures God’s forces besieging him like an army. They pile up a ramp to attack a city wall and camp around his tent. He feels surrounded, with nowhere to flee.

BSA: ramp (“siege ramp, way”): Armies built earthen ramps to climb over city walls, so Job feels under full attack.

Job 19:13-14

Job’s losses now turn to people. Brothers, acquaintances, relatives and close friends have all drawn away. The pain of being abandoned is added to the pain of his sickness and bereavement.

BSA: abandoned (“estranged, become strangers to”): People he knew well now act as though they never knew him.

Job 19:15-16

Even guests and household servants treat Job as a foreigner. His own servant ignores him when he calls. A man who once gave orders now has to beg a servant, and he is not answered.

BSA: stranger (“an alien, foreigner”): In his own house he is treated as an outsider with no claim on anyone.

Job 19:17

His own wife finds his breath repulsive, and his brothers find him loathsome. Illness has made him hard to be near. The people closest to him cannot bear to come close.

BSA: loathsome (“disgusting, an abomination”): Even his own relatives are repelled by him.

Job 19:18-19

Even small children mock him when he stands up. His closest friends, the ones he loved, have turned against him. The hurt is the sharper for coming from people who were once near.

BSA: best friends (“intimate companions, closest associates”): These were people who knew his inner life, not casual acquaintances.

Job 19:20

Job is nothing but skin and bone. ‘The skin of my teeth’ is a saying for a narrow escape. He is saying that he barely has life left, with almost nothing to hold on to.

BSA: skin (“barely, with nothing to spare”): The phrase means he escaped with the slightest margin and has almost nothing left.

Job 19:21-22

Job pleads for pity from his friends, because the hand of God has struck him. He asks why they must add to what God has already done. They have chased him like hunters and are never satisfied.

BSA: pity (“show kindness, be gracious”): He asks for grace, not agreement, from those who should comfort him.

Job 19:23-24

Job wishes his words could be written down and carved in stone, so that his claim of innocence would last. Writing in lead or on rock was meant to last for ages. He wants the truth to stand even if he does not live to see it vindicated.

BSA: stone (“rock, boulder, eternal monument”): Stone suggests a lasting witness that outlives the man.

Job 19:25

Now Job’s faith rises up out of the darkness. He knows that his Redeemer lives. A redeemer was a close relative who stood up for a family member, to defend him and set things right. Job believes that someone will finally stand up for him on earth. Christians see here a hope fulfilled in Christ.

BSA: Redeemer (“kinsman, vindicator”): This is a family defender who takes up a relative’s cause and clears his name. lives (“is alive, has life”): Job’s confidence rests on a living person, not on an idea.

Hebrew: גֹּאֲלִי (go’ali, H1350) — “my redeemer, my kinsman-defender.” The word names the nearest relative who would buy back a lost inheritance or avenge a wrong. Job claims a personal defender who is his own.

See also: Ruth 4:4; Isaiah 59:20.

Job 19:26

Job believes that even after his body has wasted away, he will see God in his flesh. The text is hard to translate exactly, but Job clearly expects to meet God. Christians have often read this as hope in resurrection, and others read it as a hope for vindication in this life. In either case, Job’s trust in God holds.

BSA: destroyed (“has been destroyed by worms, is eaten away”): Job faces the full wasting of his body and still expects to see God.

See also: 1 Corinthians 15:42-44.

Job 19:27

Job says he will see God himself, with his own eyes, not as a stranger. The God who now seems an enemy will be met as a friend. His heart burns with longing for that day, and the longing is the proof of his faith.

BSA: stranger (“one unknown or unacquainted”): Job expects to meet God as someone he knows, not as an outsider. yearns (“longs, is consumed with desire”): His longing is deep and burning, reaching to his inmost being.

See also: 1 John 3:2.

Job 19:28-29

Job ends with a warning. If his friends keep hunting him on the claim that his trouble is his own fault, they should fear the sword of God’s judgment themselves. There is a judgment, and it will fall on those who wrongly accuse the suffering.

BSA: judgment (“legal suit, divine verdict”): The word suggests a court case in which God will rule on all sides.

See also: Job 42:7.