Job 19

Job 19:1-29 . JOB'S REPLY TO BILDAD.

2. How long, &c.--retorting Bildad's words ( Job 18:2 ). Admitting the punishment to be deserved, is it kind thus ever to be harping on this to the sufferer? And yet even this they have not yet proved.

3. These--prefixed emphatically to numbers ( Genesis 27:36 ).
ten--that is, often ( Genesis 31:7 ).
make yourselves strange--rather, "stun me" [GESENIUS]. (See Margin for a different meaning [that is, "harden yourselves against me"]).

4.erred--The Hebrew expresses unconscious error. Job was unconscious of wilful sin.
remaineth--literally, "passeth the night." An image from harboring an unpleasant guest for the night. I bear the consequences.

5. magnify, &c.--Speak proudly ( Obadiah 1:12 , Ezekiel 35:13 ).
against me--emphatically repeated ( Psalms 38:16 ).
plead . . . reproach--English Version makes this part of the protasis, "if" being understood, and the apodosis beginning at Job 19:6 . Better with UMBREIT, If ye would become great heroes against me in truth, ye must prove (evince) against me my guilt, or shame, which you assert. In the English Version "reproach" will mean Job's calamities, which they "pleaded" against him as a "reproach," or proof of guilt.

6. compassed . . . net--alluding to Bildad's words ( Job 18:8 ). Know, that it is not that I as a wicked man have been caught in my "own net"; it is God who has compassed me in His--why, I know not.

7. wrong--violence: brought on him by God.
no judgment--God will not remove my calamities, and so vindicate my just cause; and my friends will not do justice to my past character.

8. Image from a benighted traveller.

9. stripped . . . crown--image from a deposed king, deprived of his robes and crown; appropriate to Job, once an emir with all but royal dignity ( Lamentations 5:16 , Psalms 89:39 ).

10. destroyed . . . on every side--"Shaken all round, so that I fall in the dust"; image from a tree uprooted by violent shaking from every side [UMBREIT]. The last clause accords with this ( Jeremiah 1:10 )
mine hope--as to this life (in opposition to Zophar, Job 11:18 ); not as to the world to come ( Job 19:25 , Job 14:15 ).
removed--uprooted.

11. enemies--( Job 13:24 , Lamentations 2:5 ).

12. troops--Calamities advance together like hostile troops ( Job 10:17 ).
raise up . . . way--An army must cast up a way of access before it, in marching against a city ( Isaiah 40:3 ).

13. brethren--nearest kinsmen, as distinguished from "acquaintance." So "kinsfolk" and "familiar friends" ( Job 19:14 ) correspond in parallelism. The Arabic proverb is, "The brother, that is, the true friend, is only known in time of need."
estranged--literally, "turn away with disgust." Job again unconsciously uses language prefiguring the desertion of Jesus Christ ( Job 16:10 , Luke 23:49 , Psalms 38:11 ).

15. They that dwell, &c.--rather, "sojourn": male servants, sojourning in his house. Mark the contrast. The stranger admitted to sojourn as a dependent treats the master as a stranger in his own house.

16. servant--born in my house (as distinguished from those sojourning in it), and so altogether belonging to the family. Yet even he disobeys my call.
mouth--that is, "calling aloud"; formerly a nod was enough. Now I no longer look for obedience, I try entreaty.