2 How long will you make my life bitter, crushing me with words? 3 Ten times now you have made sport of me; it gives you no sense of shame to do me wrong. 4 And, truly, if I have been in error, the effect of my error is only on myself. 5 If you make yourselves great against me, using my punishment as an argument against me, 6 Be certain that it is God who has done me wrong, and has taken me in his net. 7 Truly, I make an outcry against the violent man, but there is no answer: I give a cry for help, but no one takes up my cause.
8 My way is walled up by him so that I may not go by: he has made my roads dark. 9 He has put off my glory from me, and taken the crown from my head. 10 I am broken down by him on every side, and I am gone; my hope is uprooted like a tree. 11 His wrath is burning against me, and I am to him as one of his haters. 12 His armies come on together, they make their road high against me, and put up their tents round mine. 13 He has taken my brothers far away from me; they have seen my fate and have become strange to me. 14 My relations and my near friends have given me up, and those living in my house have put me out of their minds. 15 I am strange to my women-servants, and seem to them as one from another country. 16 At my cry my servant gives me no answer, and I have to make a prayer to him. 17 My breath is strange to my wife, and I am disgusting to the offspring of my mother's body. 18 Even young children have no respect for me; when I get up their backs are turned on me. 19 All the men of my circle keep away from me; and those dear to me are turned against me. 20 My bones are joined to my skin, and I have got away with my flesh in my teeth. 21 Have pity on me, have pity on me, O my friends! for the hand of God is on me. 22 Why are you cruel to me, like God, for ever saying evil against me?
23 If only my words might be recorded! if they might be put in writing in a book! 24 And with an iron pen and lead be cut into the rock for ever! 25 But I am certain that he who will take up my cause is living, and that in time to come he will take his place on the dust; 26 And ... without my flesh I will see God; 27 Whom I will see on my side, and not as one strange to me. My heart is broken with desire.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Job 19:2-27
Commentary on Job 19:1-7
(Read Job 19:1-7)
Job's friends blamed him as a wicked man, because he was so afflicted; here he describes their unkindness, showing that what they condemned was capable of excuse. Harsh language from friends, greatly adds to the weight of afflictions: yet it is best not to lay it to heart, lest we harbour resentment. Rather let us look to Him who endured the contradiction of sinners against himself, and was treated with far more cruelty than Job was, or we can be.
Commentary on Job 19:8-22
(Read Job 19:8-22)
How doleful are Job's complaints! What is the fire of hell but the wrath of God! Seared consciences will feel it hereafter, but do not fear it now: enlightened consciences fear it now, but shall not feel it hereafter. It is a very common mistake to think that those whom God afflicts he treats as his enemies. Every creature is that to us which God makes it to be; yet this does not excuse Job's relations and friends. How uncertain is the friendship of men! but if God be our Friend, he will not fail us in time of need. What little reason we have to indulge the body, which, after all our care, is consumed by diseases it has in itself. Job recommends himself to the compassion of his friends, and justly blames their harshness. It is very distressing to one who loves God, to be bereaved at once of outward comfort and of inward consolation; yet if this, and more, come upon a believer, it does not weaken the proof of his being a child of God and heir of glory.
Commentary on Job 19:23-29
(Read Job 19:23-29)
The Spirit of God, at this time, seems to have powerfully wrought on the mind of Job. Here he witnessed a good confession; declared the soundness of his faith, and the assurance of his hope. Here is much of Christ and heaven; and he that said such things are these, declared plainly that he sought the better country, that is, the heavenly. Job was taught of God to believe in a living Redeemer; to look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come; he comforted himself with the expectation of these. Job was assured, that this Redeemer of sinners from the yoke of Satan and the condemnation of sin, was his Redeemer, and expected salvation through him; and that he was a living Redeemer, though not yet come in the flesh; and that at the last day he would appear as the Judge of the world, to raise the dead, and complete the redemption of his people. With what pleasure holy Job enlarges upon this! May these faithful sayings be engraved by the Holy Spirit upon our hearts. We are all concerned to see that the root of the matter be in us. A living, quickening, commanding principle of grace in the heart, is the root of the matter; as necessary to our religion as the root of the tree, to which it owes both its fixedness and its fruitfulness. Job and his friends differed concerning the methods of Providence, but they agreed in the root of the matter, the belief of another world.