Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 19:2
How long will ye vex my soul, and break me in pieces with words?
2. Job 19:13-22. Then even a more touching complaint of the alienation of men from him which God has caused.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
2. There is more than impatience expressed in the words vex (afflict) and “break in pieces”; the words suggest the crushing effect which the friends’ insinuations of wickedness had on Job’s spirit.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Job, forsaken of God and men, and without hope in this life, rises to the assurance that God will yet appear to vindicate him, and that his eyes shall see him on his side in joy
2 5. Job expresses his impatience of his friends’ words; and repudiates the inferences of his guilt which they draw from his calamities, declaring that his calamities are due to the unjust dealing of God.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
How long will ye vex my soul? – Perhaps designing to reply to the taunting speech of Bildad; Job 18:2. He had asked how long it would be ere Job would make an end of empty talk? Job asks, in reply, how long they would torture and afflict his soul? Or whether there was on hope that this would ever come to an end!
And break me in pieces – Crush me, or bruise me – like breaking any thing in a mortar, or breaking rocks by repeated blows of the hammer. Noyes. He says they had crushed him, as if by repeated blows.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 2. How long will ye vex my soul] Every thing that was irritating, vexatious, and opprobrious, his friends had recourse to, in order to support their own system, and overwhelm him. Not one of them seems to have been touched with a feeling of tenderness towards him, nor does a kind expression drop at any time from their lips! They were called friends; but this term, in reference to them, must be taken in the sense of cold-blooded acquaintances. However, there are many in the world that go under the sacred name of friends, who, in times of difficulty, act a similar part. Job’s friends have been, by the general consent of posterity, consigned to endless infamy. May all those who follow their steps be equally enrolled in the annals of bad fame!
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
With mere empty words, void of sense or argument; with your impertinent and unedifying discourses, and bitter reproaches, as it followeth.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
2. How long, &c.retortingBildad’s words (Job 18:2).Admitting the punishment to be deserved, is it kind thus ever to beharping on this to the sufferer? And yet even this they have not yetproved.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
How long will ye vex my soul,…. Which of all vexation is the worst; not only his bones were vexed, but his soul also, as David’s was, Ps 6:2. His body was vexed with boils from head to feet; but now his soul was vexed by his friends, and which denotes extreme vexation, a man’s being vexed to his very heart: there are many things vexations to men, especially to good men; they are not only vexed with pains of the body, as others, and with loss of worldly substance; but even all things here below, and the highest enjoyment of them, as wealth, wisdom, honours, and pleasures, are all vanity and vexation of spirit, as they were to Solomon; but more especially truly good men are vexed with the corruptions of their hearts, which are as pricks in their eyes and thorns in their sides, and with the temptations of Satan, which are also thorns in the flesh and fiery darts, and with the conversation of wicked men, as was the soul of righteous Lot, and with the bad principles and practices of professors of religion; and sometimes, as Job was, they are vexed by their own friends, who should be their comforters, but prove miserable ones, as his did, and even vexations, and continued so to the wearing him out almost; and so some render the words, “how long will ye weary my soul” c? with repeating their insinuations that he was a wicked and hypocritical man, and therefore was afflicted of God in the manner he was; and which, knowing his own innocency, extremely vexed him:
and break me in pieces with words? not his body, but his spirit; which was broken, not by the word of God, which is like an hammer that breaks the rocky heart in pieces; for such a breaking is in mercy, and not an affliction to be complained of; and such as are thus broken are healed again, and bound up by the same hand that breaks; who has great, regard to broken spirits and contrite hearts; looks to them, and dwells with them, in order to revive and comfort them: but by the words of men; Job was smitten with the tongues of men; as Jeremiah was, and was beaten and bruised by them, as anything is beaten and bruised by a pestle in a mortar, as the word d signifies, and is sometimes rendered,
Isa 53:5; these must be not soft but hard words, not gentle reproofs, which being given and taken in love, will not break the head, but calumnies and reproaches falsely cast, and with great severity, and frequently, which break the heart. See Ps 69:20.
c “defatigabitis”, Schmidt, Michaelis. d “obtundetis”, Vatablus, Piscator, Schmidt; so Michaelis, Schultens.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
XIX.
(2) How long?Job begins as Bildad himself had begun in both cases. His last speech had been so offensive and unfeeling that Job may well ask How long will ye vex my soul, and break me in pieces with words? Moreover, Bildad had infused a kind of personal malice into his charges, which Job felt most keenly, so that he is constrained to ask, If indeed I have erred, doth not my error remain with myself? I alone suffer for it, and ye do not even sympathise or suffer with me.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
JOB’S FIFTH REPLY
1. Then Job answered His friends ought to be ashamed of their ill-treatment, for he, and he alone, has the brunt of his error, if error there be, to bear; and the cause at issue really lies between him and his God. It was not enough, however, that God should have overthrown him, hedged him in, degraded and altogether ruined him; but his brethren, his wife, and his bosom friends, and even his servants, have turned against him. His wreck is so complete that he has thus far escaped only with the skin of his teeth. Yet in the darkest of all mortal hours there gleams upon him an incomparable revelation of hope, which he esteems so precious that he would have it inscribed on the rock, where all the world might see and read, and that forever.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Introduction Even suppose there should be error, it is sad enough for Job that he bear its consequences, without being perpetually and maliciously reminded not only of his error but of his shame, Job 19:2-5.
2. Bildad’s repeated how long, (see chap. 18,) Job hurls back with an indignation which is reflected in an exaggerated “ten times” of the next verse.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Job 19:2 How long will ye vex my soul, and break me in pieces with words?
Ver. 2. How long will ye vex my soul? ] viz. With your furious and reproachful charges and criminations? Have I not misery enough already, but you must lay more load of scorn and contempt upon me; and so go on to trouble me by adding to my saddest sorrows, such as pierce to the very soul? Call you this comforting an afflicted friend? Hoccine est maestum consolari?
How long will ye break me in pieces with words?
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
How long: Job 8:2, Job 18:2, Psa 13:1, Rev 6:10
vex: Job 27:2, Jdg 16:16, Psa 6:2, Psa 6:3, Psa 42:10, 2Pe 2:7, 2Pe 2:8
break me: Psa 55:21, Psa 59:7, Psa 64:3, Pro 12:18, Pro 18:21, Jam 3:6-8
Reciprocal: 2Sa 2:26 – how long Job 13:5 – General Job 16:2 – heard Job 27:12 – altogether Job 34:24 – break Psa 72:4 – break Psa 109:16 – persecuted Psa 119:22 – Remove
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Job 19:2-3. And break me in pieces with words With mere empty words, void of sense or argument; with your impertinent and unedifying discourses and bitter reproaches. These ten times have ye reproached me That is, many times, a certain number being put for an uncertain. Ye make yourselves strange You carry yourselves like strangers to me, are not affected with my calamities, and condemn me as if you had never known my integrity and piety.