Job

Job 19

29 verses · Wisdom · Old Testament

1Then Job answered,

2“How long will you torment me, and crush me with words? 3You have reproached me ten times. You aren’t ashamed that you attack me. 4If it is true that I have erred, my error remains with myself. 5If indeed you will magnify yourselves against me, and plead against me my reproach, 6know now that God has subverted me, and has surrounded me with his net.
7“Behold, I cry out of wrong, but I am not heard. I cry for help, but there is no justice. 8He has walled up my way so that I can’t pass, and has set darkness in my paths. 9He has stripped me of my glory, and taken the crown from my head. 10He has broken me down on every side, and I am gone. He has plucked my hope up like a tree. 11He has also kindled his wrath against me. He counts me among his adversaries. 12His troops come on together, build a siege ramp against me, and encamp around my tent.
13“He has put my brothers far from me. My acquaintances are wholly estranged from me. 14My relatives have gone away. My familiar friends have forgotten me. 15Those who dwell in my house and my maids consider me a stranger. I am an alien in their sight. 16I call to my servant, and he gives me no answer. I beg him with my mouth. 17My breath is offensive to my wife. I am loathsome to the children of my own mother. 18Even young children despise me. If I arise, they speak against me. 19All my familiar friends abhor me. They whom I loved have turned against me. 20My bones stick to my skin and to my flesh. I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.
21“Have pity on me. Have pity on me, you my friends; for the hand of God has touched me. 22Why 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 inscribed in a book! 24That with an iron pen and lead they were engraved in the rock forever! 25But as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives. In the end, he will stand upon the earth. 26After my skin is destroyed, then I will see God in my flesh, 27whom I, even I, will see on my side. My eyes will see, and not as a stranger.
“My heart is consumed within me. 28If you say, ‘How we will persecute him!’ because the root of the matter is found in me, 29be afraid of the sword, for wrath brings the punishments of the sword, that you may know there is a judgment.”

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What others are saying

4 commentators · 64 notes on this chapter

Matthew HenryEnglish Puritan / Nonconformist · 1708–17143

Writes as a pastor rather than a critic. Expect devotional and practical application over historical or linguistic analysis, read through a Reformed covenantal frame — and expect the Old Testament to be read forward toward Christ throughout.

Why this voice is here: The most widely read English commentary for three centuries. Included as a baseline: where Henry and a modern voice diverge, the divergence itself is usually the interesting part.

v. 1–7

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…

v. 8–22

Bildad had very disingenuously perverted Job's complaints by making them the description of the miserable condition of a wicked man; and yet he repeats them here, to move their pity, and to work upon their good nature, if they had any left in them. I. He…

v. 23–29

In all the conferences between Job and his friends we do not find any more weighty and considerable lines than these; would one have expected it? Here is much both of Christ and heaven in these verses: and he that said such things as these declared plainly…

John GillParticular Baptist / High Calvinist · 1746–176329

The most exhaustive and the most doctrinally committed here. Expect high — even supralapsarian — Calvinism applied consistently, and unusually heavy use of rabbinic and Talmudic sources for Jewish context. Where a passage bears on election or the will, Gill will read it in one direction, and knowing that in advance is the point.

Why this voice is here: The strongest Calvinist reading available in the public domain, and the best on Jewish background. Read alongside Clarke, not instead of him — between them you get both sides of the argument.

v. 1

Then Job answered and said. Having heard Bildad out, without giving him any interruption; and when he had finished his oration, he rose up in his own defence, and put in his answer as follows.

v. 2

How long will ye vex my soul,.... Which of all vexation is the worst; not only his bones were vexed, but his soul also, as David's was, Psalm 6:2. His body was vexed with boils from head to feet; but now his soul was vexed by his friends, and which denotes…

v. 3

These ten times have ye reproached me,.... Referring not to ten sections or paragraphs, in which they had done it, as Jarchi; or to the five speeches his friends, in which their reproaches were doubled; or to Job's words, and their answer, as Saadiah; for it…

Keil & DelitzschGerman Lutheran, conservative-critical · 1861–18756

The technical one, and Old Testament only. Expect Hebrew grammar, textual argument, and direct engagement with nineteenth-century critical scholarship — closer to a scholarly apparatus than a devotional read. Where a modern critic claims a text is late or composite, this is where the conservative counter-argument was made.

Why this voice is here: Old Testament only, and heavy going — but the place to look when someone asserts a passage cannot mean what it appears to.

v. 1–6

1 Then began Job, and said: 2 How long will ye vex my soul, And crush me with your words? 3 These ten times have ye reproached me; Without being ashamed ye astound me. 4 And if I have really erred, My error rests with myself. 5 If ye will really magnify…

v. 7–11

7 Behold I cry violence, and I am not heard; I cry for help, and there is no justice. 8 My way He hath fenced round, that I cannot pass over, And He hath set darkness on my paths. 9 He hath stripped me of mine honour, And taken away the crown from my head. 10…

v. 12–15

12 His troops came together, And threw up their way against me, And encamped round about my tent. 13 My brethren hath He removed far from me, And my acquaintance are quite estranged from me. 14 My kinsfolk fail, And those that knew me have forgotten me. 15…

Jamieson, Fausset & BrownScottish Presbyterian / Reformed · 187126

The concise option. Three authors split the canon, so the voice shifts between sections. Expect brief, sober, conservative notes that resolve difficulties rather than dwelling on them — useful for orientation, thinner than Gill or Clarke where a passage is genuinely contested.

Why this voice is here: The quickest way to see what the mainstream Reformed reading of a passage is. Start here, then go to Gill or Clarke when it matters.

v. 3

These--prefixed emphatically to numbers (Gen 27:36). ten--that is, often (Gen 31:7). make yourselves strange--rather, "stun me" [GESENIUS]. (See Margin for a different meaning [that is, "harden yourselves against me"]).

v. 4

erred--The Hebrew expresses unconscious error. Job was unconscious of wilful sin. remaineth--literally, "passeth the night." An image from harboring an unpleasant guest for the night. I bear the consequences.

v. 5

magnify, &c.--Speak proudly (Oba 1:12; Eze 35:13). against me--emphatically repeated (Psa 38:16). plead . . . reproach--English Version makes this part of the protasis, "if" being understood, and the apodosis beginning at Job 19:6. Better with UMBREIT, If ye…

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