Read Job chapter 19 online with LogosAI Bible study tools, highlights, and cross references.
Job 19 is part of “Second Cycle of Dialogue” (15–21) in the outline of Job.
Job 19 summary
This chapter is Job's answer to Bildad's discourse in the foregoing chapter. Though his spirit was grieved and much heated, and Bildad was very peevish, yet he gave him leave to say all he designed to say, and did not break in upon him in the midst of his argument; but, when he had done, he gave him a fair answer, in which, I. He complains of unkind usage. And very unkindly he takes it. 1. That his comforters added to his affliction (Job 19:2-7). 2. That his God was the author of his affliction (Job 19:8-12). 3. That his relations and friends were strange to him, and shy of him, in his affliction (Job 19:20-22). II. He comforts himself with the believing hopes of happiness in the other world, though he had so little comfort in this, making a very solemn confession of his faith, with a desire that it might be recorded as an evidence of his sincerity (Job 19:23-27). III. He concludes with a caution to his friends not to persist in their hard censures of him (Job 19:28, Job 19:29) If the remonstrance Job here makes of his grievances may serve sometimes to justify our complaints, yet his cheerful views of the future state, at the same time, may shame us Christians, and may serve to silence our complaints, or at least to balance them.
Source: Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible (1706–21; Romans–Revelation completed by Nonconformist ministers). Public domain. Digital text: Free Use Bible API (bible.helloao.org).
1 Then Job answered,
2 “How long will you torment me, and crush me with words?
3 You have reproached me ten times. You aren’t ashamed that you attack me.
4 If it is true that I have erred, my error remains with myself.
5 If indeed you will magnify yourselves against me, and plead against me my reproach,
6 know 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.
8 He has walled up my way so that I can’t pass, and has set darkness in my paths.
9 He has stripped me of my glory, and taken the crown from my head.
10 He has broken me down on every side, and I am gone. He has plucked my hope up like a tree.
11 He has also kindled his wrath against me. He counts me among his adversaries.
12 His 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.
14 My relatives have gone away. My familiar friends have forgotten me.
15 Those who dwell in my house and my maids consider me a stranger. I am an alien in their sight.
16 I call to my servant, and he gives me no answer. I beg him with my mouth.
17 My breath is offensive to my wife. I am loathsome to the children of my own mother.
18 Even young children despise me. If I arise, they speak against me.
19 All my familiar friends abhor me. They whom I loved have turned against me.
20 My 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.
22 Why 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!
24 That with an iron pen and lead they were engraved in the rock forever!
25 But as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives. In the end, he will stand upon the earth.
26 After my skin is destroyed, then I will see God in my flesh,
27 whom I, even I, will see on my side. My eyes will see, and not as a stranger. “My heart is consumed within me.
28 If you say, ‘How we will persecute him!’ because the root of the matter is found in me,
29 be afraid of the sword, for wrath brings the punishments of the sword, that you may know there is a judgment.”