Job · chapter 19 of 42
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In Job 19 Job answers Bildad by complaining that God has hemmed him in and that relatives, friends and servants abandon him. He begs his friends for pity and wishes that his words be engraved in rock forever. He declares that he knows his Redeemer lives and that, even after his body is destroyed, he will see God for himself.
This chapter contains one of the most famous declarations of faith in the Bible: I know that my Redeemer lives. It appears in the middle of Job's bleakest complaint, right after he describes the abandonment of everyone around him. The passage is hard to translate, but its general sense is clear: Job hopes that someone will in the end vindicate his cause and that he will see God.
Job asks his friends how long they will torment him and break him in pieces with words. Ten times they have reproached him and they are not ashamed to wrong him. Even if he has erred, his error stays with him. If they magnify themselves against him and use his disgrace as an argument, let them know that God has put him in the wrong and closed his net about him.
He cries out violence and is not answered; he calls for help and there is no justice. God has walled up his way so that he cannot pass and has set darkness on his paths. He has stripped him of his glory and taken the crown from his head. He breaks him down on every side and he is gone; he has uprooted his hope like a tree. He has kindled his wrath against him and counts him as his adversary. His troops come together, cast up a siege ramp against him and encamp around his tent.
His family has withdrawn: God has put his brothers far from him, and his acquaintances are completely estranged; his relatives and close friends have forgotten him. His guests and maidservants count him a stranger, and his servant gives no answer when he calls. His breath is strange to his wife, and even young children despise him. His intimate friends abhor him. His bones stick to his skin, and he has escaped by the skin of his teeth.
He begs his friends for pity: the hand of God has touched him. Why do they pursue him as God does? Oh that his words were written and engraved with an iron pen and lead in the rock forever! For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God. I shall see him for myself, and my eyes will behold him, and not another; my heart faints within me. If they say, how shall we pursue him, let them fear the sword, for wrath brings the punishment of the sword, that they may know there is judgment.
References follow ESV book names and verse numbers. Read each verse in your Bible before the explanation.
Job says that God has put him in the wrong and closed his net around him. It is his conviction that his suffering comes from God and not from his sin, and so the friends who accuse him are mistaken.
Job begs his friends for pity, because the hand of God has touched him. It is a simple and human plea: what he needs from them is not a theory about his pain but compassion.
Job declares that he knows his Redeemer lives and that at the last he will stand upon the earth. A redeemer was the relative who defended a family member's rights. Job hopes that God himself will take on that role and vindicate his cause.
Job says that even after his skin is destroyed he will see God for himself, with his own eyes. The Hebrew text is difficult, but it shows a hope of personal encounter with God that many Christians have read in the light of the resurrection.
6 questions with answers and references, ready for Sunday school, small group or a Bible quiz night.
Answer: Ten times, and they are not ashamed to wrong him. — Job 19:3
Answer: God himself, who has closed his net around him. — Job 19:6
Answer: They abandon him: his brothers are far from him, his acquaintances are estranged and his servant does not answer. — Job 19:13-16
Answer: Pity, because the hand of God has touched him. — Job 19:21
Answer: That they be written and engraved in a rock forever. — Job 19:23-24
Answer: That he lives, that he will stand upon the earth at the last, and that Job will see God for himself. — Job 19:25-27
Job 19 combines the deepest abandonment with the highest hope. It is a chapter for those who feel that no one understands them. Job loses the company of his family and friends, and still holds on to a living Redeemer. In your group you can share what sustains you when you feel alone.
The text also invites us to review how we treat someone who suffers. Job asks for pity, not arguments, and that is a request the church can honor. And for the Christian, the statement that the Redeemer lives takes on its full meaning in the risen Jesus Christ, so that we can read this passage with a hope that Job barely glimpsed.
Job 19 ends with a warning to the friends: there is a judgment. With this declaration, Job's most hopeful reply so far closes. In Job 20 Zophar will speak for the second time, offended by Job's rebuke, and will describe the brief joy of the wicked.
In its context, Job speaks of a redeemer who will defend his cause and of seeing God. Many Christians read this passage in the light of Christ, our Redeemer, who rose from the dead. The Christian reading is valid, but it is good to recognize that Job did not know Jesus and that his hope was to be vindicated by God.
The Hebrew text of this verse is difficult and is translated in various ways. It can be understood as a hope of seeing God after death, in the flesh, or of seeing God still in this life before dying. Either reading affirms Job's hope of an encounter with God.
It is a poetic expression meaning that Job escaped with almost nothing, with the barest minimum left. It has become a way of speaking about a narrow escape. Job uses it to describe his body reduced to skin and bones.