Job 19:1 ¶ Then Job answered and said,
Job 19:2 How long will ye vex my soul, and break me in pieces with words?
Job 19:3 These ten times have ye reproached me: ye are not ashamed that ye make yourselves strange to me.
Job 19:4 And be it indeed that I have erred, mine error remaineth with myself.
Job responds to Bildad by wondering how long they intend to grieve him and destroy him with their words. “Ten times” seems to be a reference to a continual action. Coffman states that it is an idiom that means often or frequently.
Job notes that they don’t seem sorry at all to be hurting (from Hebrew for “strange”) him. Job states that if he has sinned (possibly “in ignorance” from the Hebrew), it is his problem—not theirs.
Job 19:5 If indeed ye will magnify yourselves against me, and plead against me my reproach:
Job 19:6 Know now that God hath overthrown me, and hath compassed me with his net.
Job 19:7 Behold, I cry out of wrong, but I am not heard: I cry aloud, but there is no judgment.
Job recognizes that they believe they are in the right because Job’s circumstances seem to be evidence to that fact. He believes that God is sovereign and is responsible for turning his life upside down (from Hebrew for “overthrown”). Still, Job continues to insist that he is innocent even though no one will believe him.
Job 19:8 ¶ He hath fenced up my way that I cannot pass, and he hath set darkness in my paths.
Job 19:9 He hath stripped me of my glory, and taken the crown from my head.
Job 19:10 He hath destroyed me on every side, and I am gone: and mine hope hath he removed like a tree.
Job feels like God has imprisoned him in a dark place and taken everything good away from him. God has destroyed him to the point that he has no hope.
Job 19:11 He hath also kindled his wrath against me, and he counteth me unto him as one of his enemies.
Job 19:12 His troops come together, and raise up their way against me, and encamp round about my tabernacle.
Job is most grieved that he feels like God has declared him to be His enemy, and he feels like a man under constant attack.
Job 19:13 He hath put my brethren far from me, and mine acquaintance are verily estranged from me.
Job 19:14 My kinsfolk have failed, and my familiar friends have forgotten me.
Job 19:15 They that dwell in mine house, and my maids, count me for a stranger: I am an alien in their sight.
Job 19:16 I called my servant, and he gave me no answer; I intreated him with my mouth.
Job 19:17 My breath is strange to my wife, though I intreated for the children’s sake of mine own body.
Job 19:18 Yea, young children despised me; I arose, and they spake against me.
Job 19:19 All my inward friends abhorred me: and they whom I loved are turned against me.
Job notes that all of his kinfolk and friends have turned against him. His own servants have turned against him and refused to help him. Even Job’s wife couldn’t stand to be near him though he had been a loving father and faithful to pray for his children. Not even the children will have anything to do with him. Everyone he loves has turned against him.
The IVP New Bible Commentary summarizes it this way: “For Job’s suffering means to everyone who knows him that, despite everything they thought they knew about him, Job has been a dreadful sinner. It is dangerous to associate with such a wicked person.”
Job 19:20 My bone cleaveth to my skin and to my flesh, and I am escaped with the skin of my teeth.
Job 19:21 Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O ye my friends; for the hand of God hath touched me.
Job 19:22 Why do ye persecute me as God, and are not satisfied with my flesh?
Job bemoans his physical condition. He appears as no more than a bag of bones and has barely escaped death to this point. Job pitifully calls for his friends to show him a bit of kindness and mercy. He wonders why they insist on adding to the grief and sorrows with which God has afflicted him. (Reminder: It is Satan afflicting him—not God.)
Courson: “Abraham Lincoln wisely said that he has a right to criticize who has a heart to help. Job’s friends, however, weren’t there to help. Oh, initially, they might have come with that in mind. But ow they were more interested in being right than in doing right.”
And again: “Every time we get into a hard situation, we tend to mentally put God on trial. But the answer will always be found in ‘Cross-examination'—for as we look at the Cross, we have no other option but to say, ‘Lord, I understand that You are madly in love with me.’”
Job 19:23 ¶ Oh that my words were now written! oh that they were printed in a book!
Job 19:24 That they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever!
Job 19:25 For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth:
Job 19:26 And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God:
Job 19:27 Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me.
Suddenly, Job glimpses a bit of hope. He wishes that his words, his confident expectation for the future, could be recorded in a book for posterity (and they are). That hope: Job knows that his redeemer lives and will one day stand upon the earth. How much he knew about that redeemer is uncertain.
A redeemer makes reference to one who will deliver you from trouble and ransom you at his own expense. Context proves that he believes that redeemer to be God, though it is unlikely that he knew that it would be God the Son.
Job was also confident that even though his body be completely destroyed by worms, he would one day see God in the flesh with his own eyes. In fact, his heart is consumed with the desire for that time to come. Boy, can I relate with that desire!
Job continues to cling to the fact that he will one day be proven innocent before God. Why else would he look forward to seeing God face to face?
Exactly what Job knew about life after death and how he knew it are not explained. I think it is significant, however, that long before Jesus came to earth the truth of a coming redeemer and the resurrection to new life was known.
Courson: “From Genesis to Revelation, we see this theme over and over again. Whenever God’s people go through tribulation and difficulty, testing and trial, they inevitably receive fresh understanding and revelation concerning the nature, the character, and the reality of our Lord….I’m convinced that prosperity is a far greater problem for us than persecution is because when we’re prosperous, we tend not to think about eternity or heaven….When you’re at the bottom, the only place you can look is up.”
Job 19:28 But ye should say, Why persecute we him, seeing the root of the matter is found in me?
Job 19:29 Be ye afraid of the sword: for wrath bringeth the punishments of the sword, that ye may know there is a judgment.
I think the NLT captures the heart of these verses: “How dare you go on persecuting me, saying, ‘It’s his own fault’? I warn you, you yourselves are in danger of punishment for your attitude. Then you will know that there is judgment.”
I liked this observation from Spurgeon: “There is another most comforting thought, - that our Vindicator will clear us from true charges as well as false ones. As for the false charges, what do they matter? It is the true ones that really concern us: can Christ clear us from them? Yes, that he can.”
I loved this quote from Stedman by an unknown poet; I have heard Ravi Zacharias use these verses many times. I agree that it is a good summary of the book of Job to this point.
“When God wants to drill a man,
And thrill a man,
And skill a man;
When God wants to mold a man
To play the noblest part,
When he yearns with all his heart
To create so great and bold a man
That all the world shall be amazed,
Watch his methods, watch his ways --
How he ruthlessly perfects
Whom he royally elects.
How he hammers him and hurts him,
And with mighty blows, converts him
Into trial shapes of clay
Which only God understands,
While his tortured heart is crying,
And he lifts beseeching hands.
How he bends but never breaks
When his good he undertakes.
How he uses whom he chooses,
And with every purpose, fuses him,
By every act, induces him
To try his splendor out.
God knows what he's about.”
Job 20:1 ¶ Then answered Zophar the Naamathite, and said,
Job 20:2 Therefore do my thoughts cause me to answer, and for this I make haste.
Job 20:3 I have heard the check of my reproach, and the spirit of my understanding causeth me to answer.
Zophar takes the stage for his second punch at Job. He says that he has to speak up because he is greatly disturbed at Job’s insults and must defend himself.
Job 20:4 Knowest thou not this of old, since man was placed upon earth,
Job 20:5 That the triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the hypocrite but for a moment?
Job 20:6 Though his excellency mount up to the heavens, and his head reach unto the clouds;
Job 20:7 Yet he shall perish for ever like his own dung: they which have seen him shall say, Where is he?
Job 20:8 He shall fly away as a dream, and shall not be found: yea, he shall be chased away as a vision of the night.
Job 20:9 The eye also which saw him shall see him no more; neither shall his place any more behold him.
Zophar hopes to make Job realize the error of his assessment of his situation while shaming him in the process. He states that surely Job knows that since man was first placed on the earth, the joy (from Hebrew for “triumphing”) of the ungodly is only temporary. That is true from a spiritual perspective.
Though full of pride for a time, he will be destroyed and forgotten. Forgotten from an eternal perspective is true, but not necessarily so in the current age.
Courson: “‘It is the evil man who dies young,’ Zophar says. How, then, Zophar do you explain Robert Murray McCheyne, the great Scottish preacher who died at twenty-nine, David Brainerd, missionary to the American Indians who died at twenty-eight, Jim Eliot, missionary to the Auca Indians who died at twenty-four?”
Job 20:10 ¶ His children shall seek to please the poor, and his hands shall restore their goods.
There were certainly some different thoughts on the translations of this verse. Most translations give the idea the wicked man’s children will end up begging from the poor in consequence of their father’s sin.
Example, the ESV: “His children will seek the favor of the poor, and his hands will give back his wealth.”
Again, this is not necessarily true in this age.
Job 20:11 His bones are full of the sin of his youth, which shall lie down with him in the dust.
Job 20:12 Though wickedness be sweet in his mouth, though he hide it under his tongue;
Job 20:13 Though he spare it, and forsake it not; but keep it still within his mouth:
Job 20:14 Yet his meat in his bowels is turned, it is the gall of asps within him.
Zophar posits that though the wicked may enjoy their sin for a season, he will surely face its poisonous consequences. That is certainly true from an eternal perspective.
Job 20:15 He hath swallowed down riches, and he shall vomit them up again: God shall cast them out of his belly.
Job 20:16 He shall suck the poison of asps: the viper’s tongue shall slay him.
Job 20:17 He shall not see the rivers, the floods, the brooks of honey and butter.
Job 20:18 That which he laboured for shall he restore, and shall not swallow it down: according to his substance shall the restitution be, and he shall not rejoice therein.
Zophar notes that all the riches the wicked man amasses will not make him happy. I think there are many that would testify to the truth of this statement.
Clarke adds some insight on verse 16: “That delicious morsel, that secret, easily-besetting sin, so palatable, and so pleasurable, shall act on the life of his soul, as the poison of asps would do on the life of his body. The poison is called the gall of asps, it being anciently supposed that the poison of serpents consists in their gall, which is thought to be copiously exuded when those animals are enraged; as it has been often seen that their bite is not poisonous when they are not angry.”
Job 20:19 Because he hath oppressed and hath forsaken the poor; because he hath violently taken away an house which he builded not;
Job 20:20 Surely he shall not feel quietness in his belly, he shall not save of that which he desired.
Job 20:21 There shall none of his meat be left; therefore shall no man look for his goods.
Job 20:22 In the fulness of his sufficiency he shall be in straits: every hand of the wicked shall come upon him.
Job 20:23 ¶ When he is about to fill his belly, God shall cast the fury of his wrath upon him, and shall rain it upon him while he is eating.
Zophar points out that the wicked man oppressed the poor to satisfy his greed. A man who would stoop that low will never be satisfied and always want more, and he will eventually face judgment. Basically true.
Knowing that his friends have continued to call Job a wicked man implies that they considered him guilty of all these things that they associated with the wicked man. What a sad excuse for “friends.”
Job 20:24 He shall flee from the iron weapon, and the bow of steel shall strike him through.
Job 20:25 It is drawn, and cometh out of the body; yea, the glittering sword cometh out of his gall: terrors are upon him.
Job 20:26 All darkness shall be hid in his secret places: a fire not blown shall consume him; it shall go ill with him that is left in his tabernacle.
Job 20:27 The heaven shall reveal his iniquity; and the earth shall rise up against him.
Job 20:28 The increase of his house shall depart, and his goods shall flow away in the day of his wrath.
Zophar declares that the wicked man will face the judgment of God when he least expects it. He cannot escape it. He will lose all of his ill-gotten gains because you can’t take it with you when you die.
Many commentators note that in verse 28 Zophar is making a direct reference to Job as a wicked man. Frankly, I think he is making reference to Job as the wicked man in his whole response.
Job 20:29 This is the portion of a wicked man from God, and the heritage appointed unto him by God.
Zophar closes by basically saying, “I’m right and you are wrong. I rightly represent God and you don’t.”
How blessed we are as Christians to be able to store up treasures in heaven that will far surpass anything we could amass in this lifetime. Those that reject the LORD, however, face a future of eternal torment.
Matthew 6:20 “But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal….”
Revelation 20:10–15 “And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever….And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.”
Stedman made an interesting observation concerning Job’s three friends and what we can learn from them.
“Here we have three Pharisees who are assaulting Job….and I think as we read them we can see how often they represent what our attitudes have been. This is one of the reasons why this book was written, to show us how wrong these friends were. At the end of the book, God plainly says that these men did not treat Job in the right way, that they are wrong.
This is a revelation to us that Pharisaism is one of the most deadly enemies of the truth today. In many ways the church has fallen into Pharisaism, a kind of outward rightness with an inward wrongness. So as we look at these men we can perhaps recognize some features about ourselves and some things we need to correct.”