Job 19

Job 19:8-22

This chapter contains Job’s answer to Bildad’s discourse, in which, 1. He complains, (1.) That his comforts had added to his afflictions, ver. 2—7. (2.) That God was the author of them, ver. 8—12. (3.) That his relations and friends were strange to him under them, ver. 13—19. (4.) That he had no pity flowed him, ver. 20—22. 2. He professes his belief of a resurrection, and his hopes of happiness in it, ver. 23—27. 3. He content his friends against their hard confuses of him, ver. 28, 29.

1. THEN Job answered and said, 2. How long will ye vex my soul, and break me in pieces with words? 3. These ten times have ye reproached me: you are not ashamed that you + make yourselves strange to me. 4. And be it indeed that I have erred, mine error remaineth with myself. 5. If indeed you will magnify yourselves against me, and plead against my reproach: 6. Know now that God hath overthrown me, and hath compelled me with his net. 7. Behold,

7 A I cry Before God’s Loth. I cry out of wrong, but * I am not heard: I cry aloud, but there is no judgment. In sub-

1. He complains of the cruel usage he met with; They saved his foul, added gall to his cup, attempted to rob him of his only remaining comfort, his integrity; and exasperated his spirit by provocations, more than man could bear. They broke him in hours until words, every one had a stone to throw at him: they reprauded him as a wicked hypocrite, they were not informed to make themselves strange to him, however scaldfully attached to him before; his afflictions had made them fly of him, and they blushed not at the baseness of their conduct. They magnified dimlyfent against him, looked down upon, and inflicted him: they pleaded against him his reproach, turned his suffering into an argument of his hypocrisy and iniquity; and this they perished in, notwithstanding all his remonstrances, and no times, or several times, (a certain number for an uncertain) repeated their cruel reflections and unkindness. Note, (1.) Inward vexation is among the foreth trials. (2.) Reproach hath been the portion of many a good man. (3.) Fable friends discover themselves in adversity. (4.) They that are down, are generally trampled upon. (5.) It needs great patience to sustain repeated inflicts.

2. He makes a concession for argument’s sake, v. 4. Be it indeed that I have erred, who is infallible! and errors of judgment deferred not such rough treatment. Besides, mine error remained such myself; if what I hold concerning God’s dissertations be wrong, I am only chargeable with it, and answerable for it: or rather I must remain in what you call an error, receiving not the least conviction from your discoveries. Note, (1.) It were the height of folly to conceit ourselves infallible. (2.) Truth is not the less precious, because proud and worldly-wise men flaming it with the brand of error.

3. He warns them not rashly to impute to God motives for his conduct he would disavow. His sufferings were from his hand alone; he was compassed with his net of afflictions, v. 6. He cried out for judgment against his plunderers, but was not yet heard: yea, though he cried aloud, and wished the whole of his case might appear before God, no court was appointed for listening it, nor judgment given, v. 7. but God knew wherefore he withheld the answer to his prayer, without admitting their conclusion that he was a wicked man. Note, (1.) Though our prayers may seem to be repulsed, we must not faint. (2.) Sooner or later every man’s cause will be heard, and the righteous sentence pass thereon.

4. He hath fenced up my way that I cannot pass, and he hath set darkness in my paths. 9. He hath tript me of my glory, and taken the crown from my head. 10. He hath destroyed me on every side, and I am gone: and mine hope hath he removed like a tree. 11. He hath also kindled his wrath against me, and he counteth me unto him as one of his enemies. 12. His troops come together, and raise up their way against me, and encamp round about my tabernacle. 13. He hath put my brethren far from me, and mine acquaintance are verily effranged from me. 14. My kinsfolk have failed, and my familiar friends have forgotten me. 15. They that dwell in mine house, and my maids, count me for a stranger: I am an aliant in their sight. 16. I called my servant, and he gave me no answer: I intreated him with my mouth. 17. My breath is strange to my wife, though I intreated for the children’s sake of mine own body. 18. Yea, young children despised me: I a-role, and they spake against me. 19. All my inward friends abhorred me: and they whom I loved are turned against me. 20. My bone cleaveth to my skin, and to my flesh, and I am escaped with the skin of my teeth. 21. Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O ye my friends, for the hand of God hath touched me. 22. Why do ye persecute me as God, and are not satisfied with my flesh?

Job acknowledged the hand of God in his afflictions, and here,

1. Complains of the displeasure of God therein manifested. Like a broughtard traveller in a wood, with brises and thorns God had hedged up his way, v. 8. and he could see no path out of his troubles. As one seized by robbers he had lost his ass, dropped of his earthly comforts, children, honours, and estates, v. 9. destroyed on every side, his hope was gone, as a tree moved up and dry, that never can revive again, v. 10. more bitter than any thing before, God’s wrath appeared kindled against him, and he seemed to treat him as an enemy, compassing him with legions of afflictions, and save pressing him on every

side like a besieged city, v. 11, 12. Note, (1.) The people of God are apt to write bitter things against themselves, and to imitate the rod of love for the courage of ruin. (2.) Hope is the fast support of the miserable; when that is gone, the case is deplorable indeed. (3.) Though we may see no way to escape out of temptation, he who laid the trial upon us, knows how to bring us through it with safety.

2. He laments the unkindness of his friends and acquaintance, wherein also he sees God’s afflicting hand, His brethren he had not far from him. It was their sin that they were so faithless to him, but it was of God who suffered them. His relations faded him, his acquaintance shunned him, his familiar friends forsook him, v. 12, 14. his very domestics slighted him, and would not vouchsafe him an answer, though he called and entreated, v. 15, 16. yea, the wife of his bottom cared not to come near him, and shunned his breath, as if infectious; and though he befought her by every endearing tie of conjugal affection, she paid no regard to his entreaty, v. 17. Even the children in the streets had learned of their ungodly parents to mock at him; and as he went, or arose to correct and silence them, they continued to revile him, v. 18. nay, his bottom friends, whom he loved as his own soul, not only forsook but abhorred him; nor only as hushilome, but as a wicked hypocrite, v. 19. and to justify their own perfidy, turned against him with the most virulent abode. Note, (1.) They who are under frowning Providence, will often see cause of complaint against man’s baseness and ingratiance. (2.) The nearer the relation, the greater our love, and just expeditations of a dear return, the bitterest will be the disappointment.

3. He bemoans the painful and diseased condition of his miserable body, v. 20. reduced and emaciated by his fores and sorrows, till his bones appeared ready to start through his skin, and that all over ulcerated, except his gums or lips; Saxon leaning him the use of speech, not out of compulsion, but that he might curle God.

4. He entreats, on this representation of his case, the pity of his friends, v. 21: if they would grant him nothing more, his very miseries delivered that at least: and upheeds them with the savage cruelty of persecuting thus him whom God had smitten, as if in his flesh, and willed with his authority, not content with all the miseries he had already suffered, and thriving to fill to the brim the cup of his afflictions, v. 22. Note, (1.) The least we owe to human woe is pity; a friend will do more, he will partake in it, and labour to relieve, or alleviate the sorrows of the afflicted. (2.) It is doubly grievous where God hath wounded, instead of binding up the broken-hearted, to aggravate their pains.

5. Oh that my words were now written! oh that they were printed in a book! 24. That they were graven with an iron pen and lead, in the rock for ever! 25. For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth. 26. And though after my skin, warm destroy this body, yet in my flesh! shall I see God: 27. Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not & another; I though my reins be confounded within me. 28. But ye should say, “Why persecute we him, seeing the root of the matter is found in me?” 29. Be ye afraid of the sword: for wrath bringeth the punishments of the sword, that ye may know there is a judgment.

Job 19:23-29

We have here the glorious confession of Job’s faith, as his great and only support, when all beside seemed desperate. His friends might be convinced hereby he was neither infidel nor wicked; he believed in a Divine Redeemer, and expected with confidence a judgment day; when, if not before, all their unjust accusations would be confused and confounded; and this is to all unjustly asserted by calumny, and oppressed by the world, an encouraging expectation. Some have explained this remarkable scripture away as relative only to a temporal restitution, but it is evident, v. 10. this he utterly deplored of; and chap. xxiii. 8, 9. xxx. 23. it appears he had not the least hope of prosperity returning in this world, and therefore he looked beyond the grave, into a better, where his soul had rather than the other.

1. He prefers his expectation with an earned wish, that the words he was now about to say, might be perpetuated to all ages, as a standing monument of his faith and hope, graven in the rock with an iron pen, and filled up with lead: perhaps he wished this inscription might be written on his tomb-flone, to testify when he was dead, the sentiments he entertained when alive. Note, It is for the glory of God, and the good of posterity, to leave behind us testimonies of our faith and hope; that in their works and writings, good men, like Job and Abel, (though dead) might still speak.

2. His confession deserves to be written, not merely in letters of lead on the rock, but on tables of gold, or rather on stethy tables of our hearts for ever. For, or namely, this is what I would have inscribed on the rock, I know that my redeemer liveth.

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