Job 19

— the sword:] The sword in the hand of earthly

magistrates is the emblem of punitive justice. The Scripture accordingly puts a sword into the hand of God, the

supreme Magistrate, to signify His retributive justice. And the greatest of all Teachers represents the future punishments of wicked men in terms of allusion to the

punishments inflicted by the courts of human judicature, Matt. v. 22. Scott.

Chap. XX. Zophar retorts upon Job for the threat at the close of his last speech, by declaiming like the rest on the transient prosperity and fearful end of great wicked men, insinuating covertly, that Job had all along deserved to be reckoned in this class, although Heaven had not till now been pleased to reveal his guilt. Bp. Stock. The flaw in Zophar’s discourse is this, (which was common to him with all the rest,) that he imagined God never varied from this method, and that therefore Job

was, without doubt, a bad man, though it did not appear that he was so any other way but by his misfortunes. Bp. Patrick.

Ver. 2. Therefore do my thoughts cause me to answer,

&c.] Because of thy contumelious words and threatenings, (which I have fully weighed,) I have bethought

myself what to answer. Clark.

Job 19:3

3. I have heard the check of my reproach, &c.] What Zophar calls “the check of his reproach,” was probably

Job’s stiffness, and persistence in his opinion, still dissenting from his friends, and refusing to be brought

over to their judgments. Caryl.

Job 19:4

4—7. Knowest thou not this of old, &c.] It seems thou dost not yet understand, though it is a truth as old as the world, that the happiness boasted of by the wicked, and by him who counterfeits piety, is of no long standing, and will continue but for a few moments. Though he should be advanced to the highest pitch of

human greatness, he shall at last be cast out with contempt. Bp. Patrick.

Job 19:17

17. My breath is strange to my wife.] She will not listen to my words. Caryl.

Job 19:20

20. My bone cleaveth to my skin &c.] I am become a very skeleton. Bp. Wilson.

The latter part of the verse may be rendered, “And I have shed (the hair), or have become bald on the skin of, or which covers, my teeth; that is, My mustaches are, or the hair is, shed or fallen off from my emaciated lip; which was one symptom of the elephantiasis, Job’s distemper. Michaelis, Parkhurst.

Job 19:22

22. Why do ye persecute me as God.] Why should you persecute me as God, or claim to yourselves the prerogative, like Him, to know the very secrets of my heart? Are the miseries you see me suffer in my flesh too little to satisfy you, that you are resolved to pierce my very soul with your unjust reproaches? Peters.

— and are not satisfied with my flesh? That is, why are ye not satisfied with the reproaches and slanders with which ye have already worried me? To “eat the flesh” of another is an Arabian phrase for calumniating him. Schultens, Scott.

Job 19:23

23. Oh that my words were now written! &c.] It has been supposed, that Job alludes in this passage to letters hollowed in the rock with the iron pen or chisel, and filled up with melted lead, in order to be more legible. The Septuagint, however, seem to have supposed, that he meant the recording of things by engraving accounts of them on sheets of lead. “Who will cause my words to be written, to be put in a book that shall last for ever; with an iron pen and lead,” (that is, upon lead,) “or to be engraved on the rocks?” Which cutting of letters on lead marks out an ancient method indeed of perpetuating the memory of things. Harmer.

23, 24. Oh that my words &c.] “Oh that my words were engraved in a memorial with an iron pen and lead;” the lead being to grave upon with the iron pen or style. Pliny informs us, that writing on lead, rolls of lead, was of high antiquity, and came in practice next after writing on the barks and leaves of trees, and was used in recording publick transactions. And “the cutting or sculpturing in the rock for ever,” seems to be here mentioned as a different and more durable method than even the engraving on lead. Scott, Parkhurst. It is easy to imagine, that the first inscriptions on stones were engraved on some places of the rocks which were

accidentally smoothed and made pretty even. And in fact we find some, that are very ancient, engraved on the natural rock, and, what is remarkable, in Arabia, where it is supposed that Job lived. The Prefetto of Egypt describes some such inscriptions, cut in the hard marble rock, in none of the characters now in use in the East, nor in any of those in which ancient inscriptions before known are found written in those countries. By the expression rendered “printed” in our translation, Job meant to convey the idea of perpetuating his words, as is apparent from the twenty-fourth verse. Harmer.

— oh that they were printed in a book! Oh that they were noted in a register! He wishes that his memorable words might be transmitted to posterity; first, by writing, the usual method of preserving past transactions; secondly, by the still safer method of lodging this writing in the public archives; thirdly, by inscribing them on lead, as more durable than linen or paper; and lastly, by engraving them in the natural rock, as the most durable of all. Scott.

Job 19:25

25. For I know that my redeemer liveth.] However I am judged by you, yet this is my comfort, that I know I have a Judge and a gracious Redeemer to come, who lives eternally when ye shall be gone to dust, and shall one day come down to judge the quick and the dead; and shall in that last day of our general account present Himself here upon earth to the eyes of all flesh. Bp. Hall.

Job 19:26

26, 27. And though after my skin, &c.] And though after my skin, which you see so miserably affected, this whole frame shall be dissolved and turned to dust; yet I believe that I shall live again hereafter, as truly and as certainly as I do now, and shall appear personally before my Judge, whom I shall see for myself, or in my own cause, prepared to do me justice; and, conscious of my innocence, shall look up to Him with joy and hope; whilst others, my accusers, unable to behold Him, shall look down with shame and confusion. Peters.

That Job spoke not of any sudden restitution, or any change in his temporal condition, is evident from the remarkable preface which ushers in this expression, “Oh that my words were now written! oh that they were printed in a book! that they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever!” He desires that his words may continue as long as his expectation; that they may remain in the rock, together with his hope, so long as the rock shall endure, even to the day of his resurrection. The same appears from the objections of his friends, who urged against him that he was

Job believeth the resurrection. Zophar sheweth Before CHRIST about 1520. stranger. boom. what root of matter is found in me?

Job 19:27

27. — my reins be consumed within me.] I feel my very vitala fail me, and am hastening on space towards that death, which shall consign me to a future judgment. Peters.

Job 19:28

28. But ye should say, &c.] But ye should rather say, Alas! why do we persecute this distressed man any

more, since we find, if we look to the very root and bottom of this our dispute, that he is upright, and innocent

of those things whereof we have accused him. Bp. Hall.

Job 19:29

29. Be ye afraid of the sword.] Job bids his friends beware, that they were not convinced to their cost of the certainty of a righteous judgment hereafter, by the experience of some one or other of those common THEN answered Zophar the Naamathite, and said,