19:1–6 Bildad has used opening questions about Job’s words to begin his speeches (cf. 8:2; 18:2). In 19:2 Job questions Bildad’s words, along with those of Eliphaz and Zophar: “How long will you [plural] torment me and break me in pieces with words?” Job is not simply asking them to stop their useless talk; he is asking them to cease torturing him with their words. Their verbal reproaches seem endless (“these ten times”; v. 3a; cf. Gen. 31:7, 41; Num. 14:22), and these “friends” have no remorse for what they are doing to him (cf. Job 19:3b). He does not understand, for they have no case against him. There is no public, scandalous sin. And even if he has committed some small sin or inadvertent error (cf. Lev. 5:18), such a transgression and what God does with it is none of their business (“And even if it be true that I have erred, my error remains with myself”; Job 19:4). Although they have no legal leg to stand on, they exalt themselves above Job (“you magnify yourselves against me”) and use his humiliation as the only proof of his sin (“and make my disgrace an argument against me”; v. 5). Job wants them to know that this is not wise. He wants them to accept his innocence and understand that his sufferings are a result of God’s sovereign will (“know . . . that God has . . . closed his net about me”; v. 6).

19:7–12 Like Habakkuk (cf. Hab. 1:2–4), Job cries out, “Violence!” (Job 19:7). The difference is that Job is speaking of God’s attack against him. The other difference is that God answers Habakkuk immediately, while Job still waits to hear from God: “Behold, I cry out, ‘Violence!’ but I am not answered; I call for help, but there is no justice” (v. 7). Job feels that God has been unjust (“God has put me in the wrong,” v. 6; “there is no justice,” v. 7b). Instead of treating Job like a righteous man, rewarding him with honor and lighting his way, God is treating him like the wicked:

    He has walled up my way, so that I cannot pass,

    and he has set darkness upon my paths.

    He has stripped from me my glory

    and taken the crown from my head.

    He breaks me down on every side, and I am gone,

    and my hope has he pulled up like a tree. (vv. 8–10)

And instead of treating Job like a friend, providing for him and protecting him (cf. 1:10), God is treating him like an enemy:

    He has kindled his wrath against me

    and counts me as his adversary.

    His troops come on together;

    they have cast up their siege ramp against me

    and encamp around my tent. (19:11–12)

With vivid images, Job describes his hopeless situation (“my hope has he pulled up like a tree”; v. 10b). One moment he feels completely trapped (v. 8a). The next, when he can move forward, he cannot see where he is going (v. 8b). He has lost all the high dignity he once had (v. 9). He is the target of God’s wrath (vv. 10a, 11–12).

19:13–22 From verse 6, Job has spoken about what God has done to him.

In verse 13, he adds a final “He has”:

With seven lines (vv. 13–19), Job bemoans the estrangement his sufferings have caused between him and those closest to him: his “relatives” (v. 14a), “close friends” (v. 14b), “wife” (v. 17a), brothers (“the children of my own mother”; v. 17b), and “intimate friends,” (v. 19; likely the “brothers” of v. 13a and “close friends” of v. 14b, namely, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar). He is even estranged from his household servants (vv. 15, 16), former houseguests (v. 15), and children from the community (v. 18). Collectively they have “failed” him (v. 14a), have “forgotten” him (v. 14b), are repulsed by him (v. 17), will not help him (v. 16), “despise” (v. 18a) and “abhor” him (v. 19a), and gossip against him (v. 18b). All those he has “loved have turned against” him (v. 19b). His own wife and brothers will not go near him:

We can imagine the pain of such social estrangement and assaults, as well as the physical pain. Job is literally skin and bones (“my bones stick to my skin and to my flesh”; v. 20a). He is barely alive. He has eluded death narrowly (“I have escaped by the skin of my teeth”; v. 20b). Job needs mercy; he begs for it: “Have mercy on me, have mercy on me, O you my friends” (v. 21a). He needs Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar to be real friends and stop their verbal attacks (v. 22; cf. v. 2). He hopes his physical condition is enough for them to show some compassion (v. 22b).

19:23–27 Following his plea for his friends to show mercy and stop attacking him (vv. 21–22), Job returns to a theme touched on in verse 7. There he said, “Behold, I cry out, ‘Violence!’ but I am not answered; I call for help, but there is no justice.” In verses 23–27 Job’s heart faints within him over the possibility of God’s hearing and vindicating him. Job hopes that there might be a permanent written record of his vindication: one “inscribed in a book” (v. 23b) and another “engraved in the rock forever” (v. 24b)—two witnesses to attest to the verdict “not guilty.”

Verses 25–27, perhaps the most famous verses of the book, stand out not only for their theological depth but also for their unusual tone. Job has been hopeless since chapter 3. Even in 19:10 he describes God’s taking whatever deep root of hope Job still has and “pull[ing it] up like a tree.” But now a new seed of hope emerges. Light flashes across the stage of this depressing drama. We can almost hear Job singing his solo from the score of Handel’s Messiah.

    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,

    whom I shall see for myself,

    and my eyes shall behold, and not another.

    My heart faints within me! (vv. 25–27)

By capitalizing the word “Redeemer” (v. 25), the ESV is either linking the word with “God” in verse 26 or making a Christological connection (i.e., the “Redeemer” is Jesus). Some commentators think that the redeemer here is simply the advocate and witness Job has described in 9:32–35 and 16:18–22. If this is true, then Job is once again asking for an intermediator or arbitrator who can represent him before Yahweh. The hope of this representation is restoration. However, based on the immediate context, the context of the book, and other OT references, the most likely reading is that God himself is the “Redeemer” Job hopes for. In the immediate context, “Job’s description of his ‘Redeemer’ as one who ‘lives’ (Job 19:25) and his following reference to ‘God’ (v. 26) indicate he believes that God is the one who ultimately will vindicate him.”95 In the context of the book, we learn from chapter 42 that God himself, not some human or angel, redeems (in the sense of vindicates and restores) Job. Finally, the idea of God as “Redeemer” is a familiar title (cf. Isa. 43:14; 44:6) and concept within the OT: God redeems his nation (Ex. 6:6) and individuals (Gen. 48:16).

The phrase “at the last he will stand upon the earth” (Job 19:25b) likely refers to God as Job’s Redeemer, taking the stand on his behalf at the end of the ages (judgment day), or at last. Job perhaps envisions God standing next to him on the ash heap (“the earth” could be translated “the dust”). Here we might say, as Hartley has, that “Job is beseeching the God in whom he has faith to help him against the God who is punishing him.”96 On that day (“at the last”; v. 25) and in that place (upon the “ashes”; 2:8), another paradox occurs. Not only is the court case God v. God, but Job, who has talked about death only as extinction thus far (7:9; 10:21; 14:10, 12), here speaks of dying (“after my skin has been thus destroyed”; 19:26a) and yet somehow seeing God vindicate him (“yet in my flesh I shall see God”; v. 26b), seemingly in some sort of resurrected state. “The references to skin, flesh and eyes,” as Andersen points out, “make it clear that Job expects to have this experience as a man, not just as a disembodied shade, or in his mind’s eye.”97 And the thought of this beatific vision (“God, whom I shall see . . . my eyes shall behold”; vv. 26–27ab) and beautiful vindication is too much for him to take in (“My heart faints within me!” v. 27c). This future theophany is the ground of his hope.

19:28–29 Job has asked his friends, in the politest manner thus far, to stop pursuing him (cf. v. 22). In these final two verses he warns them of what will happen if they do not stop:

    If you say, “How we will pursue him!”

    and, “The root of the matter is found in him,”

    be afraid of the sword,

    for wrath brings the punishment of the sword,

    that you may know there is a judgment. (vv. 28–29)

Job cautions them that if they continue to harass him (v. 28a) with their false accusation that his sin is the root of his troubles (v. 28b), God’s wrath that he has been experiencing (vv. 11, 29) will come upon them. Hanging above them like the sword of Damocles, Yahweh’s “sword” (two times in v. 29; cf. Isa. 66:16) is soon to drop.