Job 19:13

He hath put my brethren far from me,.... As it is one part of business in war to cut off all communication between the enemy and their confederates and auxiliaries, and to hinder them of all the help

He hath put my brethren far from me, and mine acquaintance are verily estranged from me.

My brethren, i.e. my kindred and friends, who might and should have supported and comforted me in my distress. Far from me; either, 1. In place; because they feared or disdained, or at least neglected, to visit or succour me. Or, 2. In their affections, which are far from me, when their bodies are present with me, as I find in you. But this also I ascribe to God; he hath alienated your hearts from me.

Job 19:13 He hath put my brethren far from me, and mine acquaintance are verily estranged from me.Ver. 13. He hath put my brethren far from me] In their affections at least. Some stuck to him, but for a mischief, for they proved miserable comforters, as did likewise Peter to our Saviour, who fled not with the rest of the disciples, but better he had for any good he did him. "A brother is born for adversity," saith Solomon, Proverbs 17:17; and although at other times there may be some unkindness, fratrum concordia rara est, Harmonious amoung brothers is rare. yet in affliction and extremity good nature will work, and good blood will not belie itself. But Job’ s brethren proved unkind, and grew out of kind; they got farthest from him when his enemies had besieged him. And all this befell him, not without the Lord. He hath put my brethren far from me; this was no small aggravation of the affliction, that God withdrew or withheld that assistance and influence that should have enlarged and united the hearts of his brethren unto him. See Psalms 105:25. And mine acquaintance are verily estranged from me] Those that formerly knew me thoroughly, and were as well known of me, mine intimate friends, who knew all my heart, are now truly as strange to me, as if there had never been any such matter of acquaintance, Noti mei (Vulgate). Necessarii mei (Tigur.). R. Solomon readeth it, They are cruel to me, Quasi esset scriptum aczaru. "All the brethren of the poor man hate him," saith Solomon, Proverbs 19:7, "how much more do his friends go far from him?" He pursueth them with words; yet they are lacking to him. This the heathen (as Ovid and others) heavily complain of. Aφιλοντοδυστυχες (Thue.). Et cum fortuna statque caditque fides (Ovid.). Tempera si fuerint nubila, solus eris (Ibid.). In the river Araris there is reported to be a fish called Scolopidus, which at the waxing of the moon is as white as the driven snow, and at the waning thereof is as black as a burnt coal. A fit emblem of a false friend. "Wealth maketh many friends but the poor is separated from his neighbour," Proverbs 19:4, who therefore turneth from him as a stranger, if not against him as an enemy.

(13) He hath put my brethren far from me.—The Psalmist has apparently copied this in Psalms 88:8. The sense of human desertion is hardly less terrible than that of being forsaken by God, and this has been added to him. It is not easy to read these sad complaints of Job without seeing how fitly they apply to the sorrows of the Man of sorrows. Those who, with the present writer, believe in the overruling presence of the Holy Ghost will adore His wisdom in this fitness; but at all events it shows how completely Christ entered into the very heart of human suffering, in that the deepest expressions of suffering inevitably remind us of Him, whether those expressions are met with in the Book of Job, in the Psalms of David, or in the Lamentations of Jeremiah.

13–19. The estrangement and abhorrence of men. Job’s complaint now is even more touching than before: God not only afflicted him with trouble but removed far from him all human sympathy. And there is something more breaking to the heart in the turning away of men from us than in the severest sufferings. It crushes us quite. We steel ourselves against it for a time and rise to it in bitterness and resentment, but gradually it breaks us and we are crushed at last. And this seems the way whether men frown on us with justice or no. And there came on Job when he contemplated his complete casting off by men, by his friends and his household and even by the little children, a complete break-down, and he cries, Pity me, O ye my friends (Job 19:21). This alienation of men was universal:—

He hath put my brethren - This is a new source of afflication that he had not adverted to before, that God had caused all his children to be estranged from him - a calamity which he regarded as the crown of all his woes.

Second strophe — God’s treatment of Job has resulted in the alienation of his friends of every grade, so that the menials of his house now treat him with contempt, Job 19:13-20.13.