Words in italic type have been added for clarity. They are not found in the original Hebrew or Aramaic.

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Job 19

Job lived during the time of the Patriarchs; before the written word and before the law…so, how did he know those things not yet revealed? Job had to be a prophet although not designated as such.

What should I learn from this chapter?

• If, as they claim, Job’s friends are right, then God must be wrong, which cannot be.
• Ecclesiastes 3:11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end.
  • God has a few cards up His sleeve He reveals to no one. When all things have come to pass – only then – will men see what God’s ultimate plan is and was, which is why it is called “faith”

Job Trusts in His Redeemer

Job 19:1 Then Job answered and said:

Job 19:² “How long will you torment my soul, and break me in pieces with words?

• Men are compared to pottery throughout scripture. Job’s friends are like potters dashing their pot (Job) against the ground and shattering him with their words. They actually believe they can save Job from God’s punishment by forcing him to admit his guilt. Yet, they know nothing.
• Personal application: We never know what God is doing from beginning to end and it is beyond us to tell others what God is doing with them. We rarely know what God is doing with us.

Job 19:³ These ten times you have reproached (shamed or disgraced) me;
You are not ashamed that you have wronged me (A Jewish tradition: make yourselves strange to me).

• Ten is the number of accountability.

Job 19:⁴ And if indeed I have erred, my error remains with me.

Job 19:⁵ If indeed you exalt yourselves against me, and plead my disgrace against me,

Job 19:⁶ Know then that God has wronged me, and has surrounded me with His net.

• IF you, my friends, are right, that God is against me … THEN God has wronged me!
• According to Satan, God is wrong for protecting Job.
• Job’s friends say that God is right in punishing Job for Job’s so-called sins.

Job 19:⁷ “If I cry out concerning wrong (violence), I am not heard.
If I cry aloud, there is no justice.

Job 19:⁸ He has fenced up my way (walled off my way), so that I cannot pass; and He has set darkness in my paths.

• Job has no hope because his hope is set in the invisible places of God’s knowledge where Job has no access and without answers, he cannot find that which is hidden in the darkness.

Job 19:⁹ He has stripped me of my glory,
And taken the crown from my head.

• Why? Why? Why?

Job 19:¹⁰ He breaks me down on every side,
And I am gone;

• Mortal men are a potter’s field where the potter tosses unusable pieces into the field and they are broken into shards.

My hope He has uprooted like a tree.

• Proverbs 13:12 Hope deferred makes the heart sick, But when the desire comes, it is a tree of life.
  • Proverbs 3:18 She (Wisdom) is a tree of life to those who take hold of her, And happy are all who retain her.

Job 19:¹¹ He has also kindled His wrath against me,
And He counts me as one of His enemies.

• It is difficult for Job to separate the actions of God and Satan. God “allows” Satan in order to establish something better in Job, thus turning the tables on Satan.

Job 19:¹² His troops come together
And build up their road against me;
They encamp all around my tent.

• A man’s tent is his body which he takes with him wherever he goes. When a man dies his tent is folded and left behind.
• Man is an eternal spirit clothed in a temporary physical body. Man is not a physical being whose spirit disappears when he dies.

Job 19:¹³ “He has removed my brothers far from me,
And my acquaintances are completely estranged from me.

Job 19:¹⁴ My relatives have failed, and my close friends have forgotten me.

Job 19:¹⁵ Those who dwell in my house, and my maidservants,
Count me as a stranger; I am an alien in their sight.

Job 19:¹⁶ I call my servant, but he gives no answer; I beg him with my mouth.

• Even the servant, who has no authority, ignores his master.

Job 19:¹⁷ My breath is offensive to my wife,
And I am repulsive (Lit. strange) to the children of my own body.

Job 19:¹⁸ Even young children despise me; I arise, and they speak against me.

Job 19:¹⁹ All my close friends abhor me, and those whom I love have turned against me.

• His close friends are sitting there with him, but he is also speaking of those in his community. We know that men in their sin nature love those who are prosperous. When they no longer have anything to offer they lose their aura of being someone to know. Even worse, what if they become pathetic like Job and an embarrassment of association.

Job 19:²⁰ My bone clings to my skin and to my flesh,
And I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.

• So far, Job has escaped death by the skin of his teeth (barely).

Job 19:²¹ “Have pity on me, have pity on me, O you my friends,
For the hand of God has struck me!

• There is no pity in criticism.

Job 19:²² Why do you persecute me as God does, and are not satisfied with my flesh?

• Job is saying “Why do you persecute me as you believe God is persecuting me?”

Job 19:²³ “Oh, that my words were written!
Oh, that they were inscribed in a book!

• Job’s words are written in the Bible.
• If this is a court case in heaven, the scribe would surely be taking notes as a court reporter would. In essence, Satan is taking God to court using Job as a bait.

Job 19:²⁴ That they were engraved on a rock
With an iron pen and lead, forever!

• His words are engraved on Jesus, our Rock … forever.

Job 19:²⁵ For I know that my Redeemer lives,
And He shall stand at last on the earth;

• I don’t “think” that my Redeemer lives,
• I don’t “wonder” if my Redeemer lives,
• I don’t “hope” my Redeemer lives,
• Job KNEW that his Redeemer lives (currently … in the present at Job’s time AND at the end of time)
• Furthermore; Job knew Jesus would be ruling on the earth at the end of time.
• How did Job know? Not by a priest or a pope, not by a Rabbi or a Minister, not by a great teacher, but by his relationship with God directly.

Job 19:²⁶ And after my skin is destroyed (Lit. struck off), this I know, that in my flesh I shall see God,

• The resurrected body is a glorified eternal body, yet … still “in the flesh” even as Jesus was after His resurrection.

Job 19:²⁷ Whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another.

@Prophecy Fulfillment Alert: John 5:24-29 (The Resurrection predicted) (Old Testament prophecy fulfilled by Jesus)

How my heart (Lit. kidneys ) yearns within me!

Job 19:²⁸ If you should say, ‘How shall we persecute him?’—
Since the root of the matter is found in me,

• Not only did his friends accuse him of sin, but in their accusations they are also punishing him.

Job 19:²⁹ Be afraid of the sword for yourselves;
For wrath brings the punishment of the sword,
That you may know there is a judgment.”

• Matthew 7:¹ Do Not Judge “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye?”
• Job 16:4 I also could speak as you do, If your soul were in my soul’s place. I could heap up words against you, And shake my head at you;

• Personal Application: Job is a warning not to be like Job’s friends.