I Know That My Redeemer Lives

Continuing a study of the book of Job, Job answers the cold-hearted assessment from Bildad in the last chapter:

(Job 19:1) Then Job answered and said, (2) "How long will you vex my soul, and break me in pieces with words? (3) These ten times you have reproached me; you are not ashamed that you make yourself strange to me."

Job's friends make themselves strange to Job by acting as if they don't really know him; they act as if he were a stranger and they never knew his real godly integrity.

(4) "And if indeed I have erred, my error remains with myself."

Perhaps the sense is, "If I have erred, then I suffer enough from the consequences of my sins, and I need your pity and support, rather than your reproach."

(5) "If indeed you will magnify yourselves against me, and plead against me my reproach, (6) Know now that God has overthrown me, and has surrounded me with His net."

Job continues the thought from verse 4; he shouldn't have to suffer the reproach of his friends, but if they insist in it, they need to understand that it is God who has done this to Job. God has done this, and not that it is a result of what Job has done to himself. He may also be implying that this is between God and himself, and he doesn't need their reproaches. Either way, their reproaches are unwarranted and unwanted.

(7) "Behold, I cry out of wrong, but I am not heard; I cry aloud, but there is no justice. (8) He has fenced up my way that I cannot pass; and He has set darkness in my paths. (9) He has stripped me of my glory, and taken the crown from my head. (10) He has destroyed me on every side, and I am gone; and my hope He has uprooted like a tree. (11) He has also kindled His wrath against me, and He counts me as one of His enemies."

Bildad's comments from the last chapter, blaming Job's own ungodliness for his afflictions, has Job describing in detail that these are God's actions against him, and not a result of his own actions that deserve them.

(12) "His troops come together, and raise up their way against me, and encamp round about my tent. (13) He has put my brothers far from me, and my acquaintances are completely estranged from me. (14) My kinsfolk have failed, and my close friends have forgotten me. (15) Those who dwell in my house, and my maids, count me as a stranger; I am an alien in their sight. (16) I called my servant, and he gave no answer; I begged him with my mouth."

None of Job's family, friends, or acquaintances have anything to do with him anymore. He must beg his servant because he no longer expects obedience; even his servants have lost all respect for him and ignore him.

(17) "My breath is loathsome to my wife, though I intreated for the children's sake of my own body."

This is a difficult scripture to exactly translate, but I believe the sense is that he has become loathsome to his own wife, even though he sought to appeal to her through their most intimate past relationship as parents of their children together.

(18) "Even young children despised me; I arose, and they spoke against me. (19) All my close friends abhorred me, and they whom I loved have turned against me. (20) My bone clings to my skin and to my flesh, and I have escaped with the skin of my teeth."

At this point, Job has only barely escaped death.

(21) "Have pity on me, have pity on me, O you my friends, for the hand of God has struck me."

Job makes a heartfelt plea to his friends to have pity on him in his distress. He described in great detail his distress at the hand of God so that they might finally have pity on him, rather than the disdain that they and all his acquaintances now seem to have.

(22) "Why do you persecute me as God, and are not satisfied with my flesh?"

Why do his friends persecute his very soul, as if they were God, knowing his heart? Are they not satisfied enough with the destruction of his body, that they must devour his soul, as well?

(23) "Oh, that my words were now written! Oh, that they were printed in a book! (24) That they were engraved with an iron pen and lead in a rock forever! (25) For I know that my Redeemer lives, and He shall stand at last on the earth; (26) And after my skin is destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, (27) Whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another, though my reins be consumed within me."

Indeed, Job's words have been forever preserved in the pages of the Bible. This is a most beautiful passage of how, even in Job's day, through the revelation of the Holy Spirit, Job knew that even after all life was gone from him, he would see God in his own renewed body!

(28) "But you should say, 'Why persecute we him?', seeing the root of the matter is found in me?"

Then his friends will realize, although they originally thought that he was only persecuted by God for his sins, they will then see there was a deeper more important reason, that through the record of the trial of his faith and patience, he would be an example for others.

(29) "You be afraid of the sword, for wrath brings the punishments of the sword, that you may know there is a judgment."

His friends should heed what Job says and understand correctly what his persecution means, because God will ultimately judge their words and actions.