Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 19:23

Oh that my words were now written! oh that they were printed in a book!

23. in a book ] The Heb. says in the book, using the Art. to indicate the kind of record, Exo 17:14; Num 5:23; 1Sa 10:25. The phrase means merely to “commit to writing.” The “words” which Job desires written are not those in Job 19:25 seq., but his general and oft repeated protestations of his innocence.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

23 27. Job turns to the future. He desires that his protestation of innocence could find indelible record in the rock, that it might stand a perpetual witness to all generations. But he shall have something greater: he knows that God will yet appear for his vindication, and that he shall see Him with joy.

The passage should probably be read something as follows:

23 Oh now that my words were written,

Oh that they were inscribed in a book;

24 That with a pen of iron and lead

They were graven in the rock for ever.

25 But I know that my redeemer liveth,

And in after time he shall stand upon the dust,

26 And after this my skin is destroyed

And without my flesh I shall see God:

27 Whom I shall see for myself,

And mine eyes shall behold and not another

My reins consume within me!

In Job 19:21-22 Job in his terror of God appealed to his friends for pity, but probably he saw no signs of relenting there. They could not relent; their friend might be dear, but truth and religion were greater. Secure in their principles, their countenances shewed but austere reprobation of their wicked friend. They will be more austere because they are putting down humanity and sacrificing themselves in being austere. And turning from them the desire suddenly seizes Job to make his appeal to posterity, to record in writing his protestation of his innocence, or to grave it in the rock, that when he is gone men might read it to all time. Yet this thought satisfies him but for a moment. Even if the generations to come should pass a more gentle sentence upon him than his own time, being better able to estimate his circumstances and no more warped by the heats of controversy, and more inclined amidst the acknowledged mystery of his life to allow weight to the persistent testimony of his conscience, as that behind which it is impossible to go even if they should not only mitigate but reverse the judgment of his contemporaries, how small a thing that would be to him. And his mind rebounds from this thought forward to a greater he knows that his redeemer liveth and shall appear for his vindication and peace.

APPENDIX

Additional Note on Ch. Job 19:23-27

In these verses Job anticipates that God will appear and interpose in his behalf to vindicate him, and that he shall see God, and he faints before the joyful vision. The meaning is sufficiently clear except in Job 19:25-26, in regard to which some difference of opinion prevails. The point on which interpreters differ is chiefly the question, When, according to Job’s anticipation, shall this appearance of God on his behalf take place? Shall it be before or after his death?

The difference of view arises greatly from the ambiguity of the word umibbesr, and from my flesh, Job 19:26 (see notes), though other points of construction are also involved. It is important to observe the connexion of ideas in the passage, and what the great thought is which fills Job’s mind. In Job 19:23-24 he desired that his protestations of rectitude were written in a book or rather graven with an iron pen in the rock for ever, that all generations of men to come might read them and know that he died in innocence. Suddenly a higher thought takes possession of his mind, namely the assurance that this innocence shall yet be vindicated by God appearing to uphold it, and that he himself shall see God to his joy. This seeing of God includes all within it, for now God hides His face; and this is the main thought of the passage, as the impassioned reiteration of it, Job 19:27, indicates. The connexion of Job 19:25-26 is: I know that my Goel liveth, and that he shall stand upon the dust, and I shall see God. The bulk of Job 19:26 contributes nothing to the main idea of the passage, which is the assurance of seeing God; it merely describes the circumstances in, or rather, after which the vision shall take place. This makes it probable that the construction of Job 19:26 is light, and that its two clauses are parallel and not in antithesis to one another, in other words that the second clause begins with and, not with yet. The word after, too, is a prep. in the original, and this fact increases the improbability of the antithetical construction.

i. The words from my flesh might mean, (looking) from my flesh I shall see God, i. e. as A. V. in my flesh. Two interpretations are then possible, (1) that Job shall see God after his skin is destroyed and he is reduced to a mass of flesh; or (2) that endowed with flesh anew, in another (resurrection) body he shall see God. In the one case skin is opposed to flesh; in the other it is taken as denoting Job’s present body. Both of these interpretations require the second clause of Job 19:26 to be taken in antithesis to the first, and are liable to the objections urged above. But in truth the first sense is nothing short of grotesque. A distinction between skin and flesh might be made, if the second expressed more strongly the same meaning with the first, but in the circumstances to put them in antithesis seems ludicrous. Considering the nature of Job’s malady he could hardly express its worst ravages by saying that it would destroy his skin, leaving his flesh remaining. He had already said much stronger things than this of his actual condition, among others that he was become a skeleton of bones, ch. Job 7:15; that all his members were a shadow, ch. Job 17:7; that his leanness bore witness to his face, ch. Job 16:8, as he says later that his clothes clung to his shrunken frame like the opening of his shirt, ch. Job 30:18; and that he was escaped with the skin of his teeth, ch. Job 19:20. Besides, the word rendered destroyed is literally struck off, a meaning which suggests removal of the solid parts of the body. And that the word skin may be used in this general sense of the body appears from ch. Job 18:13. Where flesh is used along with skin the two words express the same general meaning, the accumulation of terms merely serving to intensify the expression, ch. Job 10:11, Job 19:20; Lam 3:4; comp. Psa 102:5; Lam 4:8.

If therefore we understand the words “from my flesh” in the sense of in my flesh, we must suppose that Job anticipated being clothed in a new body after death; and this body is what he names his “flesh.” Something may be said for this view. Undoubtedly in ch. Job 14:13 seq. Job already conceived the idea of being delivered from Sheol and living again, and fervently prayed that such a thing might be. And what he there ventured to long for he might here speak of as a thing of which he was assured. No violence would be done to the line of thought in the Book by this supposition. Nevertheless several things are against it. The great idea of the passage, as has been said, is that God shall appear and that Job shall see Him. The rest of the words in Job 19:26 seem unemphatic, and descriptive of something naturally to be understood. But it is highly improbable that the great thought of the resurrection of the body could be referred to in a way so brief. Even if this idea had been current and a commonplace of belief, a reference to it by the words my flesh would be singular and unnatural. But on Old Testament ground, and in the situation of Job, such a matter-of-course kind of reference is almost inconceivable. We may be certain, had such an idea been alluded to, that it would have been expressed in a manner much more formal and detailed.

A somewhat different view has been taken by some scholars. Finding it difficult to accept the meaning without, or, away from for the Heb. prep. here, they retain the sense from (i. e. in), and consider the words skin and flesh to be each used somewhat generally in the sense of the “body.” Hence they translate: and after my skin (i. e. my body) has been thus destroyed, yet from my flesh (i. e. in this body of mine) I shall see God. Though not liable to the objections urged above, this view is rather unnatural. The words skin and flesh express a single general idea when coupled together by and, but that each of them should mean generally the body when separated by yet is little probable. Though this view agrees in rendering with i. above, it coincides in meaning with ii. (1) just to be mentioned, and is liable to the difficulties urged below.

ii. The words from my flesh, however, may mean away from, or, without my flesh. In this case the words “after this my skin has been destroyed are taken up and their meaning repeated in a more intense form in the phrase and without my flesh. This is the natural construction. It is to be observed, however, that the language does not state in what condition precisely Job shall see God, but rather after what events, viz. after his skin has been destroyed and his flesh has been removed. Here, however, again a division of opinion exists. (1) By some the words are taken in a comparative sense, meaning that Job shall see God when his skin and flesh have been (virtually) destroyed by his disease and he is reduced to a skeleton of bones though still in life. (2) By others the language is taken in an absolute sense, meaning that Job’s vision of God shall be after his disease has wholly destroyed his body and brought him to death. The second view is the more natural, does most justice to the language, and is most in harmony with the elevated character of the passage. It is also supported by many considerations suggested by other parts of the Book.

Before these considerations are referred to another remark may be made. It is always to be remembered what is the main thought here in Job’s mind; it is that God shall appear to vindicate his innocence, and that he shall see God to his joy. The question whether this shall be in this life or beyond this life is of subsidiary importance, and not the main point. At present Job’s afflictions are proof to him of God’s estrangement. God holds him guilty and hides His face from him. And his friends, arguing on his calamities, impute grievous sins to him. His misery was very aggravated in every view. His good name among men was sullied by shameful imputations, intolerable to his lofty mind; for the easy theory of his friends, that one might be a religious man and at the same time a great sinner, he repudiated with abhorrence, so far as his own life was concerned. Then, as a religious man, his heart was crushed by the loss of God’s favour. And the inexplicableness of this loss, combined with his unbearable afflictions at God’s hand, threw up before his mind great moral riddles which utterly baffled him. In this thick darkness he has nothing but his own consciousness to fall back upon. But his consciousness of his innocence assures him that God knows it also. And this assurance becomes the basis of the other assurance that God from His nature must yet make manifest the relation in which His servant stands to Him, and that he shall see God. Job’s assurance is based on his own past experience, on his life with God, on his consciousness of being a God-fearing man, and on his ineradicable convictions in regard to the nature of God and His relations to men. Job’s circumstances cause his principle to appear in its barest form: the human spirit is conscious of fellowship with God, and this fellowship, from the nature of God, is a thing imperishable, and, in spite of obscurations, it must yet be fully manifested by God. This principle, grasped with convulsive earnestness in the prospect of death, became the Hebrew doctrine of Immortality. This doctrine was but the necessary corollary of religion. In this life on earth the true relations of men and God were felt to be realized; and the Hebrew faith of Immortality never a belief in the mere existence of the soul after death, for the lowest popular superstition assumed this (see notes on ch. Job 14:13 seq.) was a faith that the dark and mysterious event of death should not interrupt the life of the person with God enjoyed in this world. Job’s afflictions make his faith not so much an assurance of the continuation of his fellowship with God as of its renewal or manifestation, and, of course, this might take place in this life. The similarity of the passage, however, to many others in the Old Testament, uttered in the prospect of death, makes it probable that Job speaks with death in view. And the probability is heightened by many other considerations.

1. The whole of the chapters 16, 17 and 19 are spoken by Job under the feeling that he shall die with his innocence unrecognised. Hence in ch. Job 16:18 he appeals to the earth not to cover his innocent blood; and in ch. Job 19:24 he desires that his protestations of his innocence might be graven in the rock for ever, that when he is gone men to all generations might read them. There is not the slightest ground to think that in the verses that follow these expressions in ch. 16 and 19. Job retracts or corrects this anticipation that he shall die an unjust death. The verses that follow proceed on the same assumption, but they express the prayer (ch. 16 17) or the assurance (ch. 19) that, though he die with God’s face hidden from him and under the reproach of being a transgressor, this perverse and cruel fate shall not for ever prevail over him; God shall yet appear to vindicate his innocence and he shall see Him to his joy.

On this view every word in ch. Job 19:25 seq. becomes full of meaning. Job’s Goel is he who shall vindicate him against his wrongful death. The word liveth derives its meaning from the fact that Job shall have died. The term aaron, however we render it, whether “he who shall come after me” or with Ewald an after-man, i. e. vindicator, equally implies Job’s previous death. Similarly the word dust. On the supposition that Job’s vindication shall be in this life, every one of those words is robbed of its just significance, and no account at all can be given of the use of the term liveth.

2. Further, it is certain that Job does not anticipate restoration to health and prosperity in this life. Neither in the lofty passages above referred to nor anywhere does he express such an opinion, but always and consistently an opposite one. He calls such a hope when held out by his friends “mockery,” ch. Job 17:2; comp. ch. Job 6:11, Job 17:10 seq. So certain is he that he shall die under his malady that he does not even pray for recovery, only for a little easing of his pain before he departs, ch. Job 10:20. If life is to be his portion at all, it must be a new life after this one comes to its rapid close, ch. Job 14:13 seq. This is his tone after ch. 19 as well as before it. In ch. Job 23:14 he says that God “will perform the thing appointed for him,” i. e. bring him to death through his malady. And almost his last words are, “I know that thou wilt bring me unto death,” ch. Job 30:23. It seems clear therefore that God’s intervention to declare Job’s innocence, ch. Job 19:23 seq., take place in this life, will not be accompanied by Job’s restoration to health. His disease will in spite of it carry him to the grave. But could such a thought have occurred to Job? His disease was to him the seal of God’s estrangement from him. It was God’s witness to his guilt. It was this moral meaning which his death had that caused him so to wrestle against it (see notes ch. Job 16:18 seq.). It seems impossible that Job could have conceived God declaring to men and to himself his innocence while He continued to afflict him fatally with his disease. To “see God” and to be chastened to death by Him are two things which on Old Testament ground are contradictory of one another.

The theory that God’s intervention in Job’s behalf is looked for by him in this life is thought to derive support from the actual dnouement of Job’s history (ch. 42). But the argument proves too much by a half. The author allows Job to be restored to prosperity in this life in contradiction to Job’s uniform and contemptuous rejection of such a hope. And he may equally well have advanced Job’s vision of God into this life, though Job pushed it back beyond his death. In truth, as has been said, the two things are inseparable. It would be a strange demand to make of a dramatic writer that he should make his personages express only opinions that coincide with his own, and allow them to anticipate the issue of the plot. Certainly the author of Job imposes no such restrictions on himself. He never allows Job to come within sight of the true cause of his afflictions, and as little does he permit him to foresee their issue. It was his purpose to bring into a focus the thoughts of men on the question of suffering, the great problem of his day; and some of the views expressed, particularly by Job, are those to which men were driven by the pressure of the time, or to which they rose out of the distress of their own hearts.

3. If, however, we must conclude that Job looked for this appearance of God on his behalf, and this vision of Him to his joy, not previous to his death, we must not attempt to fill up the outline which he has drawn. We must take care not to complete his sketch out of events that transpired long after his day, or out of beliefs, reposing on these events, that are now current among ourselves. The English Version has done so at the expense of the original. The great thought which filled Job’s imagination was the thought that God would appear to manifest his innocence and that he should see Him in peace and reconciliation. This thought was so intense that it almost realized itself. Job’s assurance of seeing God was so vivid that it virtually became a vision of God and he faints in the ecstasy of his faith. In such a condition of mind the preliminaries and the circumstances that would occur to a mind in a calmer state, or which immediately occur to us, do not obtrude themselves, and if we are rightly to conceive Job’s state of mind we must entirely exclude them. We should be wrong to say that he contemplates a purely spiritual vision of God, and further wrong to say that he contemplates being invested with a new body when he shall see God. Neither thought is present to his mind, which is entirely absorbed in the idea of seeing God. The ideas of Old Test, saints regarding the condition of man after death were too obscure to permit of any such formal and precise conception as that which we call a spiritual sight of God. Besides, as the kind of half-ecstasy under which Job here speaks has fallen on him when a living man, it is probable that, like all persons in such conditions, he carries over with him his present circumstances into his vision after death, and seems to himself to be such a man as he is now when he sees God; comp. ch. Job 19:25-26; Job 19:28-29.

4. The above remarks suggest what elements of truth lay in the traditional interpretation of this passage, in spite of its hardy treatment of the text. The christology of the Book is indirect. There are no express references to the Messiah, though several passages may seem unconscious prophecies of Him, as those that express Job’s desire to meet and see God as a man, ch. Job 9:32, Job 23:3 seq. Job’s Goel or redeemer is God. A distinction of Person’s in the Godhead was not present to his thoughts when he used this term; though the conception of God in the passage and many things said in it may find verification in God’s manifestation of Himself in His Son. The strange distinction which Job draws between God and God, God who persecutes him and God who is his Witness and Redeemer, is, of course, not a christological distinction, nor one that corresponds to any distinction in the Godhead made known to us by subsequent revelation. To suppose so would be a gross perversion not only of this Book but of the whole of Scripture. The distinction was one which Job’s ideas almost compelled him to draw. He believed that every event that occurred came immediately from God’s hand; and he believed that every event that befell a man reflected the disposition of God’s mind toward him: calamity indicated the anger and prosperity the favour of God. This second superstition is the source of all his perplexities; and the distinction which he draws between God and God is his effort to overcome it. God whom he appeals against is the rule and course of this world, the outer providence of God, to which Job can give no name but “God.” God to whom he appeals is the inner mind of God towards His servants, the moral ideal of the human heart. This is God his Witness and Redeemer. Job succeeded in drawing this distinction; but the reconciliation which the distinction demanded he was only partially successful in effecting. He could not reach the idea that God, the heart of God, might be towards him, while God the outer course of the world afflicted him. These two things could not be at the same time. But they might succeed one another. Hence his reconciliation is temporal: God will bring him unto death, but after his body is destroyed God shall appear to vindicate him and he shall see God.

The doctrine of Immortality in the Book is the same as that of other parts of the Old Testament. Immortality is the corollary of Religion. If there be religion, that is, if God be, there is immortality, not of the soul but of the whole personal being of man (Psa 16:9). This teaching of the whole Old Testament is expressed by our Lord with a surprising incisiveness in two sentences “I am the God of Abraham. God is not the God of the dead but of the living.”

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Oh that my words were now written! – Margin, as in Hebrew, Who will give; a common mode of expressing desire among the Hebrews. This expression of desire introduces one of the most important passages in the book of Job. It is the language of a man who felt that injustice was done by his friends, and that he was not likely to have justice done him by that generation. He was charged with hypocrisy; his motives were called in question; his solemn appeals, and his arguments to assert his innocence, were disregarded; and in this state of mind he expresses the earnest wish that his expressions might be permanently recorded, and go down to far distant times. He desired that what he had said might be preserved, that future ages might be able to judge between him and his accusers, and to know the justice of his cause. The desire thus expressed has been granted, and a more permanent record bas been made than if, in accordance with his request, his sentiments had been engraved on lead or stone.

Oh that they were printed! – It is clear that this expression may convey wholly an erroneous idea. The art of printing was then unknown; and the passage has no allusion to that art. The original word ( chaqaq) means properly, to cut in, to hew; then to cut – e. g. a sepulchre in a rock, Isa 22:16; then to cut, or engrave letters on a tablet of lead or stone, Isa 30:8; Eze 4:1; and generally it implies the notion of engraving, or inscribing on a plate with an engraving tool. Anciently books were made of materials which allowed of this mode of making a record. Stone would probably be the first material; and then plates of metal, leaves, bark, skins, etc. The notion of engraving, however, is the proper idea here.

In a book – – b^esepher. The word drow sepher is derived from saphar. In Arabic the kindred word shafar means to scratch, to scrape; and hence, to engrave, write, record – and the idea was originally that ofinsculping or engraving on a stone. Hence, the word comes to denote a book, of any materials, or made in any form. Pliny, speaking of the materials of ancient books, says, Olim in palmarum foliis scriptitatum, et libris quarundam arborum; postea publira monumenta plumbeis voluminibus, mox et privata lintels confici coepta aut ceris. Lib. xiii. 11. At first men wrote on the leaves of the palm, or the bark of certain trees; but afterward public documents were preserved in leaden volumes (or rolls), and those of a private nature on wax or linen. Montfaucon purchased at Rome, in 1699, an ancient book entirely composed of lead. It was about four inches long, and three inches wide: and not only were the two pieces that formed the cover, and the leaves, six in number, of lead, but also the stick inserted through the rings to hold the leaves together, as well as the hinges and nails. It contained Egyptian Gnostic figures and unintelligible writing. Brass, as more durable, was used for the inscriptions designed to last the longest, such as treaties, laws, and alliances. These public documents were, however, usually written on large tablets. The style for writing on brass and other hard substances was sometimes tipped with diamond.

The meaning of the word here is evidently a record made on stone or lead – for so the following verses indicate. The art of writing or engraving was known in the time of Job; but I do not know that there is evidence that the art of writing on leaves, bark, or vellum was yet understood. As books in the form in which they are now were then unknown; as there is no evidence that at that time anything like volumes or rolls were possessed; as the records were probably preserved on tablets of stone or lead; and as the entire description here pertains to something that was engraved; and as this sense is conveyed by the Arabic verb from which the word sepher, book, is derived, the word tablet, or some kindred word, will better express the sense of the original than book – and I have, therefore, used it in the translation.

Assyrian records are found generally in stone or clay; and the latter being more easily and speedily engraven with a triangular instrument, was more frequently employed.

(1) An Assyrian terra-cotta cylinder from Khorsabad contains the annals of the reign of Sargon. It is dated about 721 B.C.

(2) A hexagonal terra cotta cylinder from Koyunjik contains the annals of the first eight years of the reign of Sennacherib (702 to 694 B.C.), with an account of the expedition against Hezekiah.

(3) The inscription shows Assyrian scribes making notes of prisoners, heads of slain, spoils, etc. It comes from Koyunjik.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Job 19:23-24

Oh that my words were now written!

Job longing for a permanent memorial

Jobs wish has been gratified; his memorial has found inscription on a tablet compared with which the granite rock is rubbish, and lead a withered leaf.

It has found entry in the Word of God, which liveth and endureth forever. No temple of fame like this. This dying desire of Job to find memorial is much too natural to be at all strange. Nothing is more common in death scenes than to find the departing one rally his failing strength, and eagerly utilise his last few breaths to give final charges that shall be religiously honoured, and with painfully wistful looks try to speak after vocal power is gone. Many and impressive are the lessons that here crowd into the mind.

1. Let us say what we have to say, and do what we have to do, in time, that during life we may so live that in the hour of death we may have only to die.

2. Let us be careful to say and do nothing in life which we shall long in death–alas! unavailingly–to unsay or undo.

3. Let us, above all, speak for God and the Gospel; for that, be assured, if we are conscious and in our right mind, will be what at death we shall be most eager to do, that every word might photograph itself on the everlasting rock, and speak in its living influence long years after we are dead. (J. Guthrie, D. D.)

Jobs wish for a permanent record

As one accustomed to the use of wealth Job speaks. He thinks first of a parchment in which his story and his claim may be carefully written and preserved. But he sees at once how perishable that would be, and asses to a form of memorial such as great men employed. He imagines a cliff in the desert with a monumental inscription bearing that once he the Emeer of Uz, lived and suffered, was thrown from prosperity, was accursed by men, was worn by disease, but died maintaining that all this befell him unjustly, that he had done no wrong to God or man. It would stand there in the way of the caravans of Lema for succeeding generations to read. Kings represent on rocks their wars and triumphs. As one of royal dignity Job would use the same means of continuing his protest and his name. (R. A. Watson, D. D.)

The Redeemer

The secular view is that Job is here expressing a confident hope of recovery from his leprosy, and of justification in the sight of men. The spiritual view is that Job is looking beyond death, and is expressing his belief either in the future life of the soul, or in the resurrection of the body. It is necessary to say a few words, first on the external evidence for the meaning of the passage, and then on the internal. Both seem to me to point decisively to its spiritual interpretation.

I. The external evidence is in its favour.

1. Job did not expect recovery at all, much less was he confident of it as a certain thing which could not fail to happen. What his expectation of life was we see from such words as these (Job 17:1): My breath is corrupt, my days are extinct, the graves are ready for me; or these (Job 17:11; Job 17:15): My days are past, my purposes are broken off, even the thoughts of my heart,. . .Where is now my hope? as for my hope, who shall see it? Even if he wavered between hope and fear, he could not use such language as implies the utmost certainty.

2. The Septuagint translation (made by Jews who must, be supposed capable of understanding the Hebrew words, and made by them long before Jesus Christ brought immortality to light, and taught the doctrine of the resurrection from the dead) gives the spiritual sense of the passage: He shall raise up my body, after these present things have been destroyed.

3. The Jewish Targum on the passage (which must be free from all Christian bias) is also wholly in favour of the spiritual sense. I give its rendering by a great Hebrew scholar (Delitzsch, to which one of our most competent British Hebraists tells me he has nothing to add): I know that my Redeemer liveth, and hereafter His redemption will arise (become a reality) over the dust (into which I shall be dissolved); and after my skin is again made whole, this will happen, and from my flesh I shall again behold God.

II. The internal evidence is even more strongly in favour of the spiritual sense.

1. Observe the great solemnity with which the declaration is introduced (verse 23), and how inconsistent this is with the idea that Job refers to recovery from his leprosy, and desires to inscribe that fact on the rock for the teaching of posterity.

2. Mark next the perfect assurance of the writer, which is fully in accord with the strong conviction of spiritual faith, but is quite out of place with regard to a secular expectation.

3. The sublime and spiritual keynote of the whole passage seems thoroughly out of keeping with any feeling which ends in mere temporal blessing.

4. To see God, which is the burden of his confidence, is surely something more and deeper than the recovery of health. Not to dwell longer then on questions of interpretation, and avoiding minute verbal criticism, I give in substance the probable meaning of the passage, and pass on to consider the spiritual teaching which it implies in anticipation of the Gospel. It is to be regarded as a rock inscription. I know that my Goal liveth ever, and that He, as survivor, shall stand over my dust, and after this skin of mine is destroyed, yet from my flesh I shall see God; whom I shall see again; mine eyes shall see Him, and not another for me; for this also my reins do long.

I. Who and what is the Redeemer?

1. He is the Goel. The word has two meanings, and it has been disputed which is the correct one here. It means the avenger of blood, and it means the kinsman. Those who have adopted the secular view of the passage have contended that it must bear the former meaning only. But they have surely forgotten that the office of the avenger of blood could not be executed till after the death of the person to be avenged; and that this is one of the indications that not recovery, but something after death is looked forward to by Job. But if we ask what is the root-meaning, the original idea in the Goel, it surely is not difficult to determine. Did a man become kinsman to the murdered one because he was the avenger of his blood? Or did he not become the avenger because he was already the kinsman, and was therefore called on to avenge him? The latter is the truth; and hence kindred is the first idea of the Goel: bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. Avenger is the next thought involved in the word: one seeking reparation for our death, and therefore protecting our life by the thought that his sword is behind it. And a third idea is that of deliverance and redemption, as of family property, by one whose right is to redeem. Job then is looking forward to such a kinsman–a kinsman in the largest sense, who, being the ideal, shall fulfil all the meanings of the institution; who shall be of the same blood; who shall protect and avenge that blood, after death, of which Job is to taste; and who shall also redeem for him the lost inheritance. Here, too, the dim finger of want and of hope points onward to Him who said of every doer of the will of God: The same is My brother and sister; our kinsman, according to the flesh.

2. The Redeemer or Goal is an everliving person. So the Septuagint aptly, renders the words, My Redeemer liveth. Job is thinking of and expecting his own death; but he has full confidence that after that there shall arise his kinsman and Redeemer. Yet is it certain that He too may not pass away through death? The reply of Jobs soul is, No; He cannot pass, for He lives forever. After my flesh is dust; after, perhaps, all flesh is dust, yet He, the survivor, shall stand over the earth. This is a kinsman whose years are throughout (and beyond) all generations!

3. Still further and more remarkably Jobs kinsman is Divine. It is impossible to resist the conclusion that He who is the redeeming kinsman of the 25th verse is also the God of the 26th. And the whole interest of the passage centres in this, that Jobs kinsman-Redeemer is a Divine person, who shall interpose on Jobs behalf hereafter, by revealing Himself after death!

II. What is the expected Redeemer to do? (J. E. Coming, D. D.)

Job finding comfort for himself

The words and efforts of Jobs comforters were not in vain. Sometimes in bodily inflammations a lenitive is the best treatment, and sometimes a counter-irritant. It is not very different in inflammations of the soul. In Jobs case, perhaps, mere condolence would have completed his despair. But when they accuse him of hypocrisy of the basest kind,–when they arraign him as being rejected of God, and lying under the special curse of the Almighty,–then his manhood gathers strength in endeavour to crush the great lie.

1. Jobs first step towards recovery was when he found his voice,–though only to curse the day of his birth. The friends who sat silently beside him did this for him. They revived him from the stupor of his grief. Sometimes a sense of pain, and an exhibition of impatience, is a sign of a favourable turn in serious disease; so is it in diseases of the soul. She must weep, or she will die, sings the poet of the widow, when home they brought her warrior dead. And so the stupor of despair is always one of the gravest signs. It is true that a terrific lamentation breaks forth from him (chap. 3.), unexampled in literature,–a model on which again and again our great dramatist has formed his representations of blank despair. Solomons despair in the Book of Ecclesiastes is the result of the cynical surfeit of luxury, which finds nothing in life sufficiently important for its regard. But this is the despair of agony and grief, natural and seemingly incurable. Still it marks a slight advance. It is a feeble symptom of returning vigour. Hearts break with silent, not with uttered, grief. Speech is a sort of safety valve.

2. Jobs second step towards comfort was praying for death (chaps. 6 and 7; specially Job 6:8-13). Some, ignorant of human nature, fancy comfort would be reached by a great leap; and had they from imagination drawn a picture of a Job finding consolation, their story would have consisted of a record of his despair, and of the visit of some gracious prophet declaring Gods fatherhood. Such is not the usual experience of men. First the blade; then the ear; then the full corn in the ear; so grace always grows. Accordingly, the next step towards comfort is, though a strange, a great one. To lament a sorrow in the ears of men was some relief, but it marks an advance of the grandest kind when the soul lifts it to the ears of God. Job will not admit the accusation of Eliphaz, but he will act on the suggestion to seek unto God and commit his cause to Him. He is strengthened by the general testimony of Eliphaz to the justice and mercy of God, while repelling his insinuation that God is punishing his crimes. And so poor Job raises his eye again to his God. It is not a proper prayer, it is much too despairing; it has but little faith, and it involves an accusation against the mercy of Gods providence. Blessed be His name, God lets us approach Him thus. He casts out none that come unto Him, even though they come with the presumptuous murmurings of an elder brother, or with the despairing agony of Job. Whatever you have to say, say it to Him. It is not the proper, but the sincere prayer God wants. And when a Job comes to Him, in his desolation asking only to die, the great Father looks through all the faults of woe and weariness, to pity only the great anguish of the soul. It is not to be overlooked that before the prayer ends, he can address God by one of His noblest names: O Thou Preserver of men (Job 7:20). Is it the first Bible name of God?

3. As a further step, Job longs for clearing of his character. At first he doubtless cared but little for this. If his character was crushed beneath the judgment of God, it was just one more victim; and in a world of such disorder–where only disappointment reigned–it would have been something beneath his care whether all his fellow men frowned or smiled upon him. But with returning help and grace he wants something more,–that the approval of God might rest on him (Job 9:32-35; Job 8:2). This longing for a settlement with God, to know why and wherefore he is afflicted, does it not mark some growing force within him? Only from Him, with whom they wrestled, did either Job or Jacob gather the strength by which they overcame. When Zophar assails him, with still more bitter consolation than the rest, he seems to stimulate Jobs faith still more. His faith grows strong enough to declare though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him. I have ordered my cause; I know that I shall be justified. He also shall be my salvation: for an hypocrite shall not stand before Him (Job 13:15; Job 13:18; Job 13:16). What a hope was even then reached that God would yet justify him–vindicating his character, owning the integrity of his purpose and the sincerity of his religion. The next stage we notice is–

4. We see, again, that Job prays for some blessedness in the other world. There is a wonderful distance between the prayer of Job 6:9 –O that it would please God to destroy me; and the prayer in Job 14:13 –O that Thou wouldest hide me in the grave, that Thou wouldest keep me secret, until Thy wrath be past, that Thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember me! The other world emereges into light. Death is not an end of this life merely; it is a gateway to another state of being–a place where God can remember a man, where He can call and be answered, where He can show the desire, the favour He has to the work of His hands. It is not yet the exultant hope he reaches, but still a hope exceeding precious. The soul feels itself strangely superior to disease and decay, and begins to speculate on what it will do when it shuffles off this mortal coil. A prophet-poet of the nineteenth century has sung–

Thou wilt not leave us in the dust,

Thou madest man he knows not why;
He thinks he was not made to die:

And Thou hast made him–Thou art just,

Three thousand years ago, through the same sort of baptism of grief, the patriarch was led to the same conclusions. The Sheol, the place of the dead which had seemed so void of life and being, became to his mind a sphere of Divine activities–O that Thou wouldest hide me in the grave, that Thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember me. Thou shalt call and I will answer Thee. It is not evangelical divines alone that construe this as a dream of finding fellowship with God in the calm of an untroubled afterlife. Even M. Renan, in his translation, takes the same view. Someone says: The hope of eternal life is a flower growing on the edge of the abyss. Job found it there, and it was worth all his anguish to reach it. It is not yet a conviction. Doubt breaks in with the question–If a man die, can he live again? And the doubt is left there, faithfully registered. But felt and faced as the doubt is, the great dream reasserts itself and fastens on his imagination. So, through cloud and sunshine, over hilltops of vision, and through low valleys whose views are narrow, the soul goes on. At the outset death seemed desirable only because it seemed an absolute end. Now the great may-be that is the beginning of a better life, where Gods desire towards the work of His hands will be manifested, dawns on him. It will be lost–it will come back to him–it will seem too good news to be true. He has caught now a glimpse of it. In the next valley he will lose it, but it will never fade away again. Some people forget that each has to find his own creed. The creed cannot be manufactured. Others may give you truth; you must find the power of believing it. So the faiths of men are propagated by living seeds of truth falling on living hearts. But if there is something deeply suggestive in the beginning of his great dream, the hope does not stop there, but grows into assured confidence, for Job reaches an assured hope of immortality. You notice a strange increase of calmness in the mind of Job after Eliphaz and Bildad have spoken. Just in the degree in which his friends become angry he becomes calm. The anger even dies out of his replies, and instead of resenting their upbraiding he tenderly pleads for their sympathy. This calmness grew from his praying; his hoping that he still might reason out his cause with God, and that God would even take his part against Himself. He found a wonderful increase of it in the new thought that he might in the land of the dead walk with God. And thus subsiding into a simple faith, at last the great comfort reaches him of a sure and certain hope–of a blessed immortality. Few eyes that have not been washed with tears can look steadfastly into the world to come. Not as the world giveth does God give peace, but in a different way altogether,–by storm and grief and loss and calamity of direst kind. So He bringeth them to their desired haven. The prophets have been all men of sorrows. Sometimes a little unwisdom has been shown in pressing a dubious translation, and gathering from Jobs words a testimony to the resurrection of the body. Whether you should translate his words, In my flesh I shall see God; or, apart from my flesh I shall see God, is, indeed, quite immaterial. We shall probably be safest in taking Jobs words in their most general meaning, as details of future conditions were hardly to be expected. But taking his words in the lower sense which all interpreters admit they must carry; taking, say, the interpretation of M. Renan himself, what a wonderful hope they express.

1. That God will be his Deliverer, Protector of person and of character, Guardian and Deliverer in the world unseen.

2. That after death and divested of his body, he yet will find himself the subject of richest mercies.

3. His personal identity will be indestructibly maintained. He will not subside into the general life, but forever be a separate soul; he will see God for himself; his eyes shall behold his very self, unchanged, unite another.

4. And in this relieved and rescued, but unchanged personality, he will have the highest of all bliss–he will see God. And so Job found his dunghill become a land of Beulah–delectable mountains from which the city of God was seen. Faults of murmuring and impeachment of Gods dignity are still to be corrected, and his comfort is to be perfected by a restoration of earthly comforts.

Leaving them, we only note–

1. Gods Spirit is never idle where His providence is at work.

2. We are not following cunningly devised fables. In every age the best have been the surest of an immortality of bliss, and such faith is evidence. See we reach that heaven. (R. Glover.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 23. O that my words were now written!] Job introduces the important subject which follows in a manner unusually solemn; and he certainly considers the words which he was about to utter of great moment, and therefore wishes them to be recorded in every possible way. All the modes of writing then in use he appears to refer to. As to printing, that should be out of the question, as no such art was then discovered, nor for nearly two thousand years after. Our translators have made a strange mistake by rendering the verb yuchaku, printed, when they should have used described, traced out. O that my words were fairly traced out in a book! It is necessary to make this remark, because superficial readers have imagined that the art of printing existed in Job’s time, and that it was not a discovery of the fifteenth century of the Christian era: whereas there is no proof that it ever existed in the world before A.D. 1440, or thereabouts, for the first printed book with a date is a psalter printed by John Fust, in 1457, and the first Bible with a date is that by the same artist in 1460.

Three kinds of writing Job alludes to, as being practised in his time:

1. Writing in a book, formed either of the leaves of the papyrus, already described, (see on Job 8:11,) or on a sort of linen cloth. A roll of this kind, with unknown characters, I have seen taken out of the envelopments of an Egyptian mummy. Denon, in his travels in Egypt, gives an account of a book of this kind, with an engraved facsimile, taken also out of an Egyptian mummy.

2. Cutting with an iron stile on plates of lead.

3. Engraving on large stones or rocks, many of which are still found in different parts of Arabia.

To the present day the leaves of the palm tree are used in the East instead of paper, and a stile of brass, silver, iron, c., with a steel point, serves for a pen. By this instrument the letters are cut or engraved on the substance of the leaf, and afterwards some black colouring matter is rubbed in, in order to make the letters apparent. This was probably the oldest mode of writing, and it continues among the Cingalese to the present day. It is worthy of remark that PLINY (Hist. Nat., lib. xiii., c. 11) mentions most of these methods of writing, and states that the leaves of the palm tree were used before other substances were invented. After showing that paper was not used before the conquest of Egypt by Alexander the Great, he proceeds: In palmarum foliis primo scriptitatum deinde quarundam arborum libris: postea publica monumenta plumbeis voluminibus, mox et privata linteis confici caepta, aut ceris. “At first men wrote on palm tree leaves, and afterwards on the bark or rind of other trees. In process of time, public monuments were written on rolls of lead, and those of a private nature on linen books, or tables covered with wax.”

Pausanias, lib. xii., c. 31, giving an account of the Boeotians, who dwelt near fount Helicon, states the following fact: –

, , , ;

“They showed me a leaden table near to the fountain, all which his works (Hesiod’s) were written; but a great part had perished by the injuries of time.”

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

My words; either,

1. The following and famous confession of his faith, Job 19:25, &c. Or rather,

2. All his foregoing discourses with his friends, which he was so far from disowning or being ashamed of, that he was desirous that all ages should know, that they might judge between him and them, whose cause was better, and whose arguments were stronger.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

23. Despairing of justice fromhis friends in his lifetime, he wishes his words could be preservedimperishably to posterity, attesting his hope of vindication at theresurrection.

printednot our modernprinting, but engraven.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

O that my words were now written!…. Not his things q, as some render it, his affairs, the transactions of his life; that so it might appear with what uprightness and integrity he had lived, and was not the bad man he was thought to be; nor the words he had delivered already, the apologies and defences he had made for himself, the arguments he had used in his own vindication, and the doctrines respecting God and his providence which he had laid down and asserted; and was so far from being ashamed of them, or retracting them, that he wishes they had been taken down in writing, that posterity might read and judge of the controversy between him and his friends; but rather the words he was about to deliver in Job 19:25, expressing his faith in Christ, in the resurrection of the dead, and in a future state of happiness and glory; these he wishes were “written”, that they might remain as a standing testimony of his faith and hope; for what is written abides, when that which is only spoken is soon forgot, and not easily recalled:

O that they were printed in a book! not written on loose sheets, which might be lost, but in a book bound up, or rolled up in a volume, as was the custom of ancient times; though this cannot be understood of printing properly taken, which has not been in use but little more than five hundred years, but of engrossing, as of statutes and decrees in public records; and the word for “statutes comes” from this that is here used.

q “res meae”, Polychronius apud Pinedam in loc.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

Job’s Confession of Faith; Happiness of the Redeemed.

B. C. 1520.

      23 Oh that my words were now written! oh that they were printed in a book!   24 That they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever!   25 For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth:   26 And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God:   27 Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me.   28 But ye should say, Why persecute we him, seeing the root of the matter is found in me?   29 Be ye afraid of the sword: for wrath bringeth the punishments of the sword, that ye may know there is a judgment.

      In all the conferences between Job and his friends we do not find any more weighty and considerable lines than these; would one have expected it? Here is much both of Christ and heaven in these verses: and he that said such things as these declared plainly that he sought the better country, that is, the heavenly; as the patriarchs of that age did, Heb. xi. 14. We have here Job’s creed, or confession of faith. His belief in God the Father Almighty, the Maker of heaven and earth, and the principles of natural religion, he had often professed: but here we find him no stranger to revealed religion; though the revelation of the promised Seed, and the promised inheritance, was then discerned only like the dawning of the day, yet Job was taught of God to believe in a living Redeemer, and to look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come, for of these, doubtless, he must be understood to speak. These were the things he comforted himself with the expectation of, and not a deliverance from his trouble or a revival of his happiness in this world, as some would understand him; for besides that the expressions he here uses, of the Redeemer’s standing at the latter day upon the earth, of his seeing God, and seeing him for himself, are wretchedly forced if they be understood of any temporal deliverance, it is very plain that he had no expectation at all of his return to a prosperous condition in this world. He had just now said that his way was fenced up, (v. 8) and his hope removed like a tree, v. 10. Nay, and after this he expressed his despair of any comfort in this life, Job 23:8; Job 23:9; Job 30:23. So that we must necessarily understand him of the redemption of his soul from the power of the grave, and his reception to glory, which is spoken of, Ps. xlix. 15. We have reason to think that Job was just now under an extraordinary impulse of the blessed Spirit, which raised him above himself, gave him light, and gave him utterance, even to his own surprise. And some observe that, after this, we do not find Job’s discourses such passionate, peevish, unbecoming, complaints of God and his providence as we have before met with: this hope quieted his spirit, stilled the storm and, having here cast anchor within the veil, his mind was kept steady from this time forward. Let us observe,

      I. To what intent Job makes this confession of his faith here. Never did any thing come in more pertinently, or to better purpose. 1. Job was now accused, and this was his appeal. His friends reproached him as a hypocrite and contemned him as a wicked man; but he appeals to his creed, to his faith, to his hope, and to his own conscience, which not only acquitted him from reigning sin, but comforted him with the expectation of a blessed resurrection. These are not the words of him that has a devil. He appeals to the coming of the Redeemer, from this wrangle at the bar to the judgment of the bench, even to him to whom all judgment is committed, who he knew would right him. The consideration of God’s day coming will make it a very small thing with us to be judged of man’s judgment,1Co 4:3; 1Co 4:4. How easily may we bear the unjust calumnies and reproaches of men while we expect the glorious appearance of our Redeemer, and his redeemed, at the last day, and that there will then be a resurrection of names, as well as bodies! 2. Job was now afflicted, and this was his cordial; when he was pressed above measure this kept him from fainting–he believed that he should see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living; not in this world, for that is the land of the dying.

      II. With what a solemn preface he introduces it, Job 19:23; Job 19:24. He breaks off his complaints abruptly, to triumph his comforts, which he does, not only for his own satisfaction, but for the edification of others. Those now about him, he feared, would little regard what he said, and so it proved, He therefore wished it might be recorded for the generations to come. O that my words were now written, the words I am now about to say! As if he had said, “I own I have spoken many unadvised words, which I could wish might be forgotten, for they will neither do me credit nor do others good. But I am now going to speak deliberately, and that which I desire may be published to all the world and preserved for the generations to come, in perpetuam rei memoriam—for an abiding memorial, and therefore that it may be written plainly and printed, or drawn out in large and legible characters, so that he that runs may read it; and that it may not be left in loose papers, but put into a book; or, if that should perish, that it may be engraven like an inscription upon a monument, with an iron pen in lead, or in the stone; let the engraver use all his art to make it a durable appeal to posterity.” That which Job here somewhat passionately wished for God graciously granted him. His words are written; they are printed in God’s book; so that, wherever that book is read, there shall this be told for a memorial concerning Job. He believed, therefore he spoke.

      III. What his confession itself is; what are the words which he would have to be written; we here have them written, v. 25-27. Let us observe them.

      1. He believes the glory of the Redeemer and his own interest in him (v. 25): I know that my Redeemer liveth, that he is in being and is my life, and that he shall stand at last, or stand the last, or at the latter day, upon (or above) the earth. He shall be raised up, or, He shall be, at the latter day, (that is, in the fulness of time: the gospel day is called the last time because that is the last dispensation) upon the earth: so it points at his incarnation; or, He shall be lifted up from the earth (so it points at his crucifixion), or raised up out of the earth (so it is applicable to his resurrection), or, as we commonly understand it, At the end of time he shall appear over the earth, for he shall come in the clouds, and every eye shall see him, so close shall he come to this earth. He shall stand upon the dust (so the word is), upon all his enemies, which shall be put a dust under his feet; and he shall tread upon them and triumph over them. Observe here, (1.) That there is a Redeemer provided for fallen man, and Jesus Christ is that Redeemer. The word is Gol which is used for the next of kin, to whom, by the law of Moses, the right of redeeming a mortgaged estate did belong, Lev. xxv. 25. Our heavenly inheritance was mortgaged by sin; we are ourselves utterly unable to redeem it; Christ is near of kin to us, the next kinsman that is able to redeem; he has paid our debt, satisfied God’s justice for sin, and so has taken off the mortgage and made a new settlement of the inheritance. Our persons also want a Redeemer; we are sold for sin, and sold under sin; our Lord Jesus has wrought out a redemption for us, and proclaims redemption for us, and proclaims redemption to us, and so he is truly the Redeemer. (2.) He is a living Redeemer. As we are made by a living God, so we are saved by a living Redeemer, who is both almighty and eternal, and is therefore able to save to the uttermost. Of him it is witnessed that he liveth,Heb 7:8; Rev 1:18. We are dying, but he liveth, and hath assured us that because he lives we shall live also, John xiv. 19. (3.) There are those that through grace have an interest in this Redeemer, and can, upon good grounds, call him theirs. When Job had lost all his wealth and all his friends, yet he was not separated from Christ, nor cut off from his relation to him: “Still he is my Redeemer.” That next kinsman adhered to him when all his other kindred forsook him, and he had the comfort of it. (4.) Our interest in the Redeemer is a thing that may be known; and, where it is known, it may be triumphed in, as sufficient to balance all our griefs: I know (observe with what an air of assurance he speaks it, as one confident of this very thing), I know that my Redeemer lives. His friends have often charged him with ignorance or vain knowledge; but he knows enough, and knows to good purpose, who knows Christ to be his Redeemer. (5.) There will be a latter day, a last day, a day when time shall be no more, Rev. x. 6. That is a day we are concerned to think of every day. (6.) Our Redeemer will at that day stand upon the earth, or over the earth, to summon the dead out of their graves, and determine them to an unchangeable state; for to him all judgment is committed. He shall stand, at the last, on the dust to which this earth will be reduced by the conflagration.

      2. He believes the happiness of the redeemed, and his own title to that happiness, that, at Christ’s second coming, believers shall be raised up in glory and so made perfectly blessed in the vision and fruition of God; and this he believes with application to himself. (1.) He counts upon the corrupting of his body in the grave, and speaks of it with a holy carelessness and unconcernedness: Though, after my skin (which is already wasted and gone, none of it remaining but the skin of my teeth, v. 20) they destroy (those that are appointed to destroy it, the grave and the worms in it of which he had spoken, ch. xvii. 14) this body. The word body is added: “Though they destroy this, this skeleton, this shadow (ch. xvii. 7), this that I lay my hand upon,” or (pointing perhaps to his weak and withered limbs) “this that you see, call it what you will; I expect that shortly it will be a feast for the worms.” Christ’s body saw not corruption, but ours must. And Job mentions this, that the glory of the resurrection he believed and hoped for might shine the more brightly. Note, It is good for us often to think, not only of the approaching death of our bodies, but of their destruction and dissolution in the grave; yet let not that discourage our hope of their resurrection, for the same power that made man’s body at first, out of common dust, can raise it out of its own dust. This body which we now take such care about, and make such provision for, will in a little time be destroyed. Even my reins (says Job) shall be consumed within me (v. 27); the innermost part of the body, which perhaps putrefies first. (2.) He comforts himself with the hopes of happiness on the other side death and the grave: After I shall awake (so the margin reads it), though this body be destroyed, yet out of my flesh shall I see God. [1.] Soul and body shall come together again. That body which must be destroyed in the grave shall be raised again, a glorious body: Yet in my flesh I shall see God. The separate soul has eyes wherewith to see God, eyes of the mind; but Job speaks of seeing him with eyes of flesh, in my flesh, with my eyes; the same body that died shall rise again, a true body, but a glorified body, fit for the employments and entertainments of that world, and therefore a spiritual body, 1 Cor. xv. 44. Let us therefore glorify God with our bodies because there is such a glory designed for them. [2.] Job and God shall come together again: In my flesh shall I see God, that is, the glorified Redeemer, who is God. I shall see God in my flesh (so some read it), the Son of God clothed with a body which will be visible even to eyes of flesh. Though the body, in the grave, seem despicable and miserable, yet it shall be dignified and made happy in the vision of God. Job now complained that he could not get a sight of God (Job 23:8; Job 23:9), but hoped to see him shortly, never more to lose the sight of him, and that sight of him will be the more welcome after the present darkness and distance. Note, It is the blessedness of the blessed that they shall see God, shall see him as he is, see him face to face, and no longer through a glass darkly. See with what pleasure holy Job enlarges upon this (v. 27): “Whom I shall see for myself,” that is, “see and enjoy, see to my own unspeakable comfort and satisfaction. I shall see him as mine, as mine with an appropriating sight,” Rev. xxi. 3. God himself shall be with them and be their God; they shall be like him, for they shall see him as he is, that is seeing for themselves, 1 John iii. 2. My eyes shall behold him, and not another. First, “He, and not another for him, shall be seen, not a type or figure of him, but he himself.” Glorified saints are perfectly sure that they are not imposed upon; it is no deceptio visus–illusion of the senses. Secondly, “I, and not another for me, shall see him. Though my flesh and body be consumed, yet I shall not need a proxy; I shall see him with my own eyes.” This was what Job hoped for, and what he earnestly desired, which, some think, is the meaning of the last clause: My reins are spent in my bosom, that is, “all my desires are summed up and concluded in this; this will crown and complete them all; let me have this, and I shall have nothing more to desire; it is enough; it is all.” With this the prayers of David, the son of Jesse, are ended.

      IV. The application of this to his friends. His creed spoke comfort to himself, but warning and terror to those that set themselves against him.

      1. It was a word of caution to them not to proceed and persist in their unkind usage of him, v. 28. He had reproved them for what they had said, and now tells them what they should say for the reducing of themselves and one another to a better temper. “Why persecute we him thus? Why do we grieve him and vex him, by censuring and condemning him, seeing the root of the matter, or the root of the word, is found in him?” Let this direct us, (1.) In our care concerning ourselves. We are all concerned to see to it that the root of the matter be found in us. A living, quickening, commanding, principle of grace in the heart, is the root of the matter, as necessary to our religion as the root to the tree, to which it owes both its fixedness and its fruitfulness. Love to God and our brethren, faith in Christ, hatred of sin–these are the root of the matter; other things are but leaves in comparison with these. Serious godliness is the one thing needful. (2.) In our conduct towards our brethren. We are to believe that many have the root of the matter in them who are not in every thing of our mind–who have their follies, and weaknesses, and mistakes–and to conclude that it is at our peril if we persecute any such. Woe be to him that offends one of those little ones! God will resent and revenge it. Job and his friends differed in some notions concerning the methods of Providence, but they agreed in the root of the matter, the belief of another world, and therefore should not persecute one another for these differences.

      2. It was a word of terror to them. Christ’s second coming will be very dreadful to those that are found smiting their fellow servants (Matt. xxiv. 49), and therefore (v. 29), “Be you afraid of the sword, the flaming sword of God’s justice, which turns every way; fear, lest you make yourselves obnoxious to it.” Good men need to be frightened from sin by the terrors of the Almighty, particularly from the sin of rashly judging their brethren, Mat 7:1; Jas 3:1. Those that are peevish and passionate with their brethren, censorious of them and malicious towards them, should know, not only that their wrath, whatever it pretends, works not the righteousness of God, but that, (1.) They may expect to smart for it in this world: It brings the punishments of the sword. Wrath leads to such crimes as expose men to the sword of the magistrate. God himself often takes vengeance for it, and those that showed no mercy shall find no mercy. (2.) If they repent not, that will be an earnest of worse. By these you may know there is a judgment, not only a present government, but a future judgment, in which hard speeches must be accounted for.

Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary

5. And asserts his hope of a vindicator (goel) (Job. 19:23-27)

TEXT 19:2327

23 Oh that my words were now written!

Oh that they were Inscribed in a book!

24 That with an iron pen and lead

They were graven in the rock for ever!

25 But as for me I know that my Redeemer liveth,

And at last he will stand up upon the earth:

26 And after my skin, even this body, is destroyed,

Then without my flesh shall I see God;

27 Whom I, even I, shall see, on my side,

And mine eyes shall behold, and not as a stranger.
My heart is consumed within me.

COMMENT 19:2327

Job. 19:23Job still holds out hope of the vision of God (Job. 19:23-27). The foregoing appeal has fallen on deaf ears, as is apparent from the following speech. At the conclusion, job is completely alienated from: (1) family; (2) men, i.e., intimate friends; and apparently (3) God. Yet out of his depth of despair, he achieves a heightened faith in God which maintains that He will Shatter His Silence in the future. But for the existential moment, Job will endure this cosmic muteness. Note how his traditionalist friends have appealed to the wisdom of the past, how Job is enduring the present, and that only the future holds the solution to his dilemma.[213] If neither the past nor the present provide clues to the presence of God (i.e., a transcendent creator-redeemer God who is immanent in nature-history-social institutions-individual lives), where, if there are any, are the clues of Gods love and mercy? Since the first scientific revolution, western man has been moving in a naturalistic-humanistic direction. This process called for the death of God and the humanization of man. Oh, Job is our contemporary. Has God abandoned us? Job wants the protestation of his innocence to survive after his death in the form of a book or scroll.[214] Seper usually means book or scroll. But the verb here means to engrave. We now have the copper treasure scroll from Qumran; perhaps it is an illustration of what Job had in mind. He surely wanted his record to be permanent.

[213] Historical theology has progressed along these same lines: (1) Traditionalists depend on the past; (2) after Hegel and Kierkegaard, the emphasis was placed on the existential moment and leap of faith, and after the first collapse of Neo-orthodoxy (of Revolution-Liberation-Political Theory) influence, we move toward (3) Theology of Hope, egs. E. Block, J. Moltmann with the emphasis on the future.

[214] For possibilities of the form of materials implied, see G. R. Driver, Semitic Writing, 1954, p. 92; S. H. Gehman, JBL, 1944, pp. 3O3ff; Pope, Job, pp. 1434.

Job. 19:24A lead stylus could not make an impression on even the softest stone; therefore, the lead here must be to fill the incisions made by an iron tool. An ancient example of the use of lead in stone is Darius Is Behistun Inscription.[215]

[215] For ancient evidence of this art, see K. Galling, Die Welt des Orients, 195459, p. 6; and J.J. Stamm, Zeitschrift fur die alttestamenttiche Wissenschaft, 1953, p. 302.

Job. 19:25Here is the central verse of the entire book. Job knows that there is no immanent power within man or nature that can meet his needs. If death is the ultimate and absolute monarch of all life, then the late Heidegger is correctall of reality moves toward deathSein zum tode. The ultimate answer to evil, suffering, and death comes in this peak passageJob. 19:25-27.[216] Despite the but, this verse must not be separated from the foregoing; i.e., these words in Job. 19:23 are to be recorded in stone. The word goel (see Book of Ruth, Rth. 4:4-6) means next of kin who was obligated to exact justice in a feudDeu. 19:6-12; 2Sa. 14:11; Lev. 25:25; Lev. 25:48. The goel is the defender of both widow and orphan and the enslavedPro. 23:10-11. God is Israels goel or deliverer from Egyptian bondageExo. 6:6; Exo. 15:13; exile, Jer. 1:34; dispersionIsa. 43:1; Isa. 44:6; Isa. 44:24; Isa. 48:20; and Isa. 52:9. God also delivers the individual from deathPsa. 103:4; Lam. 3:58. Jobs concluding remarks in Job. 19:26 b clearly reveal that his redeemer is God.[217] The word aharon is here taken as adverbial at last. If it is taken as parallel to goel, it should be taken as adjectival in the sense that the first and last is guarantorIsa. 44:6; Isa. 48:12. His vindicator is living and will stand on the earth.[218] The Hebrew hayalive or livingis a designation for GodJos. 3:10; Hos. 1:10. Jobs God is a living God. The much discussed Ugaritic example concerning Baal is upon scrutiny no parallel.[219] The Vulgate changes the Hebrew and reads I shall rise, meaning that Job shall experience resurrection. The phrase upon the earth literally reads upon the dust. Here is an expressed hope in Gods victory over Sheol.[220] Jobs answer comes by resurrection. Ultimately our Lords resurrection is not merely an historical event; it is a history-making eventMat. 22:32. Death in Sheol never means extinction or annihilation, only existence that is less to be desired; as many claim, especially Jehovahs Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists (Soul Sleeping), Armstrongites, et. al.[221]

[216] See the brilliant and indispensable survey of the interpretation of this passage up to the 20th century by H. H. Rowley, From Moses to Qumran (New York: Association Press, 1963), pp. 180ff.

[217] M. Dahood, Biblica, 1971, p. 346.

[218] For extensive bibliographical survey of Faith, History, and Resurrection and references to the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin texts of Job. 19:25-27, see my essays in James Orr, The Resurrection (College Press reprint, 1972); since the development of the Religionsgeschickte Schule, scholars have become preoccupied over the origin of the idea of resurrection. Bousset and Gressmann suggest a Persian source, so also W. Eichrodt, E. Jacob, and G. Von Rad in their respective Old Testament theologies.

[219] See E. G. Kraeling, The Book of The Ways of God (New York, 1939), p. 89; also Pritchard, ed., Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (Princeton), p. 140.

[220] M. Dahood, Biblica, 1971, p. 346.

[221] See again N. J. Tromp, Primitive Conceptions of Death (Rome, 1969), esp. PP-3234, 8591.

Job. 19:26The problems of translation and understanding are great in this verse. Dahood maintains that the expression in this verse sets forth the doctrine of the creation of a new body for the afterlife1 Corinthians 15. Job expects to see God, but not until after death. He does not say how he will be conscious of his vindication (compare with Jobs earlier wordsJob. 14:21 ff). Here is one of the Old Testament highwater marks in the development of a belief in resurrection, which culminates in the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. This fact is the very essence of the Christian faith. It is an objective fact which must be subjectively appropriated, resulting in a Christian world-life style of existence. It must be more than a legalistic doctrinal orthodoxy, but not less than orthodox. Jesus alone has revealed the true nature of Jobs GodJoh. 1:18The Great Explanation. Jobs desire is to see (hazahsee a vision, a revelation) GodJob. 42:5. He is certain of two things: (1) His Vindicator will vindicate his innocence; and (2) He will see his God.[222]

[222] See W. A. Irwin, Jobs Redeemer, JBL, 1962, pp. 217229; R. Martin-Achard, De la mort a resurrection dapres lAncien Testament (Neuchatel, 1956); C. R. North, The Redeemer God, Interpretation, 1948, pp. 316; and J. Lindblom, Ich weiss, dass mein Erloser lebt, Studia Theologica, 1940, pp. 6577.

Job. 19:27God will appear on Jobs behalf (Heb. on my side) and break His silence. Job will see Him for himself, not through someone elses eyes. When he sees Him, He will appear as a friend, not as an enemy or stranger. Job is overcome with emotion (heartlit. my kidneys wear out in my bosom). In Hebrew psychology, the bowels and kidneys are regarded as the center of emotions, as was the heart of intelligence. It is wonderful, but not too wonderful to be possible.

Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

(23) Oh that my words were now written!Some understand this to refer to the words he is about to utter; by others they are interpreted generally. The former view is probably owing to the Christian acceptation given to them, and the consequently great importance attaching to them. Since, however, the three verses, Job. 19:25-27, are manifestly more emphatic than any he has yet spoken, though they do not stand quite alone, there is no reason why it should not be especially these very words which he desires more than any others to have recorded. Perhaps the now = here shows this.

Oh that they were printed.This points us to primitive time, when writing materials and the use of writing involved more or less of engraving, as, for instance, in later times was the case with tablets of wax.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

23. Written So ancient is the knowledge of writing that Pliny says “it appears to have been in use from all eternity.” It is now conceded that to the parent Semitic tribe belongs the honour to have been first in possession of this invaluable invention. The knowledge of letters comes into history through the Hebrews and Phoenicians, who, it will be remembered, are classed among the Semitic nations. These letters appear vastly more perfect than the hieroglyphic system of Egypt or the cuneiform one of Assyria. (EWALD, Hist. of Israel, 1:51; RENAN, Les Langues Sem., 1:105; WINER, Rwb. 2:421.) In remote times papyrus, (see note Job 8:11,) the skins of animals, and Egyptian linen cloth, furnished the materials on which writing was made with the pen. Books, in the ancient sense of the term, consisted of sheets of papyrus, etc., with writing on one side, and rolled around a staff. Papyrus rolls are now in existence written more than two thousand years B.C. The Turin copy of “The Book of the Dead,” written, probably, in the time of the Ptolemies, is more than a hundred feet long.

Printed in a book Inscribed in the book. Septuagint, “a book” which Merx prefers. Schultens thinks some public book is meant, in which illustrious deeds were written. Exo 17:14 speaks of writing a memorial in the book, . Taking one of the root meanings of this word, sepher, to scrape or shave off, Havernick insists that the word is used of no other writing materials than skins of animals. There would be, however, no more reason for pressing the prime meaning of the Hebrew for “book” than that of , printed; which signifying to cut into, hew into, would demand some more solid material than that of parchment. The book of which Job speaks may have been of wood or of some kind of metal. Very recently there has been discovered a copy of an extraditionary treaty between Rameses II., king of Egypt, and a prince of the Hittites. This is described as having been engraved by the latter upon an oblong tablet of silver, of which the Egyptian text gives the figure. It was surmounted by a ring which must have been used for suspending it. (M. CHABAS, Voyage, etc., p. 345.) Among the early Canaanites there was a very important city called “the Book City,” Kirjath-sepher, Jos 15:15. This was, probably, a city of the Hittites. Pliny (xiii, 21) speaks of the preservation of public documents in leaden volumes. Folding wooden tablets were employed for the same purpose even before the time of the Trojan war. (Iliad, 6:169.) The native city of Hesiod honoured his memory by engraving one of his poems on tablets of lead. (Pausanias, Job 9:31.) Very possibly Job refers to clay tablets or cylinders, such as have been discovered in modern times at Nineveh, on which the work is so minute and exquisitely wrought that the aid of a magnifying-glass is requisite to ascertain the terms of the letters. See LAYARD, Nineveh, 2:186; 3:345.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Job States his Belief in Final Vindication

v. 23. Oh, that my words were now written! those with which he protested his innocence. Oh, that they were printed in a book! inscribed in a writing-roll, to be kept for later generations as a record of his protest.

v. 24. That they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock forever! chiseled in the rock and the letters then filled with lead, as a witness to future generations. This hope, as Job knew, would not be fulfilled; he could not hope for a vindication of his righteousness before men. But he trusted in another fact, his faith was based upon another wonderful truth.

v. 25. For I know that my Redeemer liveth, he had that conviction of faith which he, for his own person, held, that his Avenger, his Vindicator, his Redeemer, was even then living, not only as the Possessor, but as the very Source, of all true life, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth, literally, “for as the last He will arise on earth. ” The time will come when the Redeemer will appear as the Advocate and Vindicator of those who put their trust in Him, as the Savior who leads to the beholding of God. When He, on the Last Day, will step on this earth, the many millions of bodies that have returned to the dust will feel the influence of His almighty power, arise from their graves, and join the Redeemer, to be led by Him into everlasting glory.

v. 26. And though after my skin worms destroy this body, literally, “and afterward will with my skin be surrounded this” (body). He is sure that there will be a glorious resurrection of the body on the Last Day, that the very skin which clothed him during his mortal life here on earth will again cover the flesh which has become subject to decay and corruption. Yet in my flesh shall I see God, literally, “Out of my flesh shall I behold God. ” The body which, in the corruption of death, was stripped of its skin will once more be clothed with that covering, and then, from out of that same body, Job would see God. Job is so sure of this fact that he pictures the scene in concrete terms.

v. 27. Whom I shall see for myself, literally, “behold unto me,” for my benefit, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another, not a stranger. It is a beholding, a seeing, in the supernatural manner which is often connected with visions. It is a beholding of God in the bliss of eternal salvation. So great is Job’s longing for the wonderful revelation to which he is looking forward that he cries out: Though my reins be consumed within me, literally, “are consumed my reins in my abdomen,” it is a consuming anxiousness which filled Job in the midst of his great tribulation; he was eating out his heart in longing for the last great day of salvation.

v. 28. But ye should say, Why persecute we him, if they should still insist upon pursuing him, seeing the root of the matter is found in me? If they still persisted in charging him with guilt, with harboring in his own heart the root of the calamities which had befallen him, they should beware.

v. 29. Be ye afraid of the sword, which the vengeance of God would bring upon them; for wrath bringeth the punishments of the sword, the crimes, the transgressions, of the sword are invariably overtaken by wrath, that ye may know there is a judgment, the slanderers and blasphemers will finally be laid low by the justice of the Lord, a statement which is full of consolation also in these last days of the world.

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

Job 19:23-24. Oh that they were printed in a book! The sense of these words, according to the translation of Schultens, is this: “Who now will write my words? Who will record them in a book? Let them be engraven on some sepulchral stone, with an iron pen and with lead, so as to last for ever.” The word rock, which our translators have made use of, seems to me to be more just than that used by Schultens. It is certain that the word zur, signifies in other places of the Book of Job a rock; and never there, or anywhere else in the Scripture that I am aware of, does it signify a small sepulchral stone, or monumental pillar. Nor can the using of this term appear strange, if we consider the extreme antiquity of the Book of Job; since it is easy to imagine that the first inscriptions on stone were engraven on some places of the rocks which were accidentally smoothed and made pretty even; and, in fact, we find some that are very ancient engraven on the natural rock, and, which is remarkable, in Arabia, where it is supposed that Job lived. This is one of the most curious observations in that account of the Prefetto of Egypt which was published by the Bishop of Clogher; and it is, in my apprehension, an exquisite confirmation of our version. The Prefetto, speaking in his journal of his disengaging himself from the mountains of Paran, says, “We came, at length, to a large plain, surrounded with high hills; at the foot of which we reposed ourselves in our tents at about half an hour after ten. These hills are called Gebel-el-Mokatab, i.e. the Written Mountains; for, as soon as we had parted from the mountains of Paran, we passed by several others for an hour together, engraved with ancient unknown characters, which were cut into the hard marble rock, so high as to be in some places at twelve or fourteen feet distance from the ground; and though we had in our company persons who were acquainted with the Arabic, Greek, Hebrew, Syriac, Coptic, Latin, Armenian, Turkish, &c. languages, yet none of them had any knowledge of these characters; which have nevertheless been cut into the hard rock with the greatest industry, in a place where there is neither water, nor any thing that can be gotten to eat.” When I consider this nature of the place, and compare it with the account that Maillet gives us of the great burying-place of the Egyptians, which is called the plain of mummies, and which, according to him, is a dry sandy circular plain, no less than four leagues over; and when I recollect the account which Maundrell gives of figures and inscriptions which, like these, are engraven on tables planed in the natural rock, and at some height above the road, which he found near the river Lycus, and which, he tells us, seemed to resemble mummies, and related, as he imagined, to some sepulchres thereabouts;I should be ready to suppose that this must be some very ancient burying-place. Such a supposition justifies the explanation of Dr. Grey as to the alluding in these words to a sepulchral inscription, but would engage us to retain the English translation, as to the term rock, in contradistinction to monumental pillars, or grave-stones cut from the quarry. Be this as it may, it is certain that there are in Arabia several inscriptions in the natural rock, and that this way of writing is very durable; for these engravings, it seems, have outlived the knowledge of the characters made use of. The practice was for the same reason very ancient: and if these letters are not so ancient as the days of Moses, as the Bishop of Clogher thinks they are, yet these inscriptions might very well be the continuation of a practice in use in the days of Job, and may therefore be thought to be referred to in these words. But, however happy our translators have been in using the word rock in the 24th verse, it is certain that they have been far otherwise in the 23rd, as to the word printed. It was absurd to employ a term which expresses what was invented but three or four hundred years ago; and especially as it does not, even by an improper expression, convey the idea of Job, which was, the perpetuating of his words, as is evident from the foregoing verse; Records, to which Job refers, being written, not printed, among us. These Written Arabian mountains very agreeably illustrate these words in part, and perhaps but in part; for it does not appear from the accounts of the Prefetto, with what view lead is mentioned here. Dr. Grey supposes that the letters, being hollowed in the rock with the iron pen, or chissel, were filled up with melted lead in order to be more legible; but it does not appear that any of these inscriptions are so filled up. Indeed, though some of them are engraven, most of those which Bishop Pococke observed near Mount Sinai were not cut, but stained, by making the granite of a lighter colour; which stain, he had an opportunity of being satisfied, sunk some depth into the stone: whether this was done with lead, let the curious determine. I shall only observe, that the LXX do not explain this at all, though the painting of granite rocks was anciently very common in Egypt, and those painting (stainings, or mere incrustations, as Norden took them to be) were extremely durable. “This sort of paintings,” says Norden, “has neither shade nor gradation. The figures are incrustated like the cyphers on the dial-plates of watches; with this difference, that they cannot be detached. I must own, that this incrustated matter surpasses in strength, all that I have seen of this kind. It is superior to the al-fresco and Mosaic work; and, indeed, has the advantage of lasting a longer time. It is something surprising to see how gold, ultra marine, and divers other colours, have preserved their lustre to the present age. Perhaps I shall be asked how all these lively colours could soften together; and I must own that it is a question which I am unable to decide.” If Job, in this place, referred to the writing with these durable staining materials on the rocks, the LXX did not understand him so to do; they seem rather to have supposed that he meant the recording of things by engraving them on plates of lead. Who will cause my words to be written, to be put in a book which shall last for ever? with an iron pen and lead, (i.e. upon lead) or to be engraven on the rocks? which cutting of letters on lead marks out an ancient method indeed of perpetuating the memory of things, but is very different from that which Bishop Pococke saw had anciently obtained in Arabia, the country of Job, and to which, therefore, his words may possibly refer. See Observations, p. 300. I would just observe, that the original words rendered and lead, which give this ingenious author to much trouble, are marked with a cross to denote their being doubtful as to the reading, and accordingly Mr. Heath omits them in his translation: That they were graven with an iron style; that they were cut in the rock to perpetuity!

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

(23) Oh that my words were now written! oh that they were printed in a book! (24) That they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock forever!

I consider these words merely as a preface to what Job was about to say, and not what he had already uttered. And in this sense they serve by way of introduction, to one of the most illustrious instances of faith to be met with, concerning the LORD JESUS CHRIST in the Old Testament scripture. Pray, Reader, as they are thus introduced and in so important a manner, let you and I attend to them the more earnestly.

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Job 19:23 Oh that my words were now written! oh that they were printed in a book!

Ver. 23. Oh that my words were now written! ] This reiterated wish Job setteth as a preamble to that ensuing memorable testimony of the resurrection, as a matter most weighty and worthy the consideration of all ages; which therefore he wisheth recorded in some public instrument to all eternity; and God said Amen to it. For not only this precious passage, but the whole Book of Job, so full of divine instruction preparatory to the last day, was committed to writing (either by Moses, or some other prophet of that age, or else by Job himself after his restoration), and put among the canonical books of Scripture; concerning which David saith, “For ever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven,” Psa 119:89 . And Christ, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but not one jot or tittle,” &c., Mat 5:18 . Not one hair of that sacred head can fall to the earth. Thus God hath answered Job, ad cardinem desiderii, as a Father speaketh, letting it be to him even as he would (Aug. Confess. 1. 5, c. 8).

Oh that they were printed ] Or drawn out, that is, written (saith one) in great and capital letters, that every man might read them, Hab 2:2 , for there was no printing in those days that we know of. The Chinese indeed tell us that they had the art of printing long before. But in Europe it was not heard of till the year 1440. It begun to be practised at Haarlem, in the Low Countries (by Lawrence Jans, say some, by John Guttenberg, say others), and was perfected at Mentz, where Cicero’s Offices, the first book that ever was printed, is still kept for a monument.

In a book! ] That it might be preserved and laid up for the use of posterity, in some Kiriahsepher, or city of books. Let them that are able, be apt and active in setting forth books for the benefit of others, since Paulum sepultae distat inertiae celata virtus – (Horat.), he that buried his talents gave a heavy account to the master, and was therefore called evil, because an idle servant, Mat 25:26

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Oh! Figure of speech Ecphonesis. App-6.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

Job 19:23-24

Job 19:23-24

JOB’S WORDS (ABOUT TO BE UTTERED) ARE OF ETERNAL SIGNIFICANCE;

AND HE PRAYED THAT THEY MIGHT BE REMEMBERED FOREVER

“Oh that my words were now written!

Oh that they were inscribed in a boom

That with an iron pen and lead

They were graven in the rock forever!”

The scholars like to speculate about the kind of book Job was talking about here, but that has nothing to do with the point. These verses prove that Job was about to mention something of eternal import, words that needed to be remembered forever. This prelude to what he said makes any speculation that Job’s declaration pertained to anything whatever in his present lifetime impossible to allow. No individual’s lifetime could possibly provide the perimeter of the world-shaking Truth to be revealed. The theater in which his words would shine forever encompassed Time and Eternity, and not merely the fleeting days of any mortal’s lifetime on earth.

The Good News Bible version erroneously translated Job 19:26, making it read, “While still in this body, I shall see God.” This is an example of that which was mentioned by Rowley that, “Some editors emend out of the passage any concept of the resurrection,” that being exactly what the editors of the Good News Bible did here. If that was all that Job meant, there would have been no need whatever for this marvelous prelude.

God honored Job’s wishes here for the eternal preservation of his priceless words. “That which Job so passionately wished for in this passage, God was pleased to grant.” The sacred words of the Holy Bible record Job’s holy words; and that is a far more permanent memorial that any leaded inscription upon the face of some Behistun mountain could possibly have been.

E.M. Zerr:

Job 19:23-24. Job has made many declarations of his faith in God, also of his belief in the prospect of another life. He was so positive about it that he had no fears that future developments would prove him to have been mistaken. And because of this assurance he wished that many assertions on the subject were even inscribed in a rock for its permanence, so that the future would be able to confirm his professions of faith. After making this wish, he made another and one of his most glorious declarations of faith In another life which will be considered soon.

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

Oh: Heb. Who will give, etc

my words: Job 31:35, Isa 8:1, Isa 30:8

oh that they were: Rather, “Oh that they were described yuchakoo in a book, with an iron stile and lead! Were graven on a rock for ever!” Pliny observes, “At first men wrote on palm leaves, and afterwards on the bark or rind of other trees. In process of time, public monuments were written on rolls of lead (plumbeis voluminibus); and those of a private nature on linen books, or tables covered with wax.

Reciprocal: Exo 17:14 – memorial Deu 6:9 – General Psa 102:18 – This Jer 17:1 – written Jer 30:2 – General Mal 3:16 – a book 1Th 5:8 – the hope

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Job’s Victorious Faith

Job 19:23-29

INTRODUCTORY WORDS

All of the heroes of the faith have not lived in our day. To tell the truth, we fear that the heroic faith which marked the ancients is waning. Even under the increased light, and the fuller revelation of God, which the present age now holds, many have made shipwreck concerning the faith.

It does one good to read the eleventh chapter of Hebrews, and to behold the conquests which the Old Testament saints wrought through faith. Their faith carried a far-flung vision. They all died, not having received the promises, but they, by faith, saw them afar off, and were persuaded of them.

In the midst of the days of God’s Old Testament worthies, Job lived. His name is not enrolled in the star cluster of Hebrews eleven, but the Holy Ghost, through James, did refer to “the patience of Job.”

We are willing to grant that Job, for a time, seemed hid under clouds of despair. His trial, as we saw in our last study, was equalled only, perhaps, by the trials of the Lord Himself. Nevertheless, this is true. The black clouds that shrouded Job, the dense darkness that hid from him the face of his Lord, no more than enhanced the glory of his visions of victorious faith, which came to him, ever and anon. Job’s faith was like the occasional burst of the rays of the sun through a storm-shadowed sky.

We are reminded time and again of the words of one who said to Christ, “Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief.”

Job may have doubted, but he did not always doubt. His disease, along with the taunts and jibes from his three false friends, no doubt led him to despise the day in which he was born; however, they never turned him aside from his final trust in the Living God. The truth is that the faith of Job presents to us some of the most marvelous visions of trust to be found in the Word of God.

When the Lord comes He may not find faith upon the earth, because the faithful will have been raptured; yet, we thank God that there are still those who “love not their lives unto the death.”

I. JOB’S VISION OF JUSTIFICATION (Job 9:2)

Bildad the Shuhite had been telling Job that if he were pure and upright God would awake for him. He argued that inasmuch as God had not come to Job’s rescue, therefore, Job was a hypocrite; and his hope was but a spider’s web. Bildad said, “God will not cast away a perfect man, neither will He help the evildoers.”

Job, in his reply, said to Bildad, “How should man be just with God?” Job admitted that he could not answer God “one of a thousand.” Job had steadfastly sustained his own righteousness, and yet he admitted,-“Though I were righteous, yet would I not answer, but I would make supplication to my Judge.” “If I justify myself, mine own mouth shall condemn me; if I say, I am perfect, it shall also prove me perverse.”

Justification is impossible apart from the Blood of Jesus Christ. God cannot justify the guilty, nor can He receive into His holy presence the unclean. All men, however, are both guilty and unclean, and therefore, they abide under the wrath of God. God, nevertheless, can be Just, and the Justifier of the ungodly, through the Daysman, Christ Jesus, to whom Job evidently referred when he said, “Neither is there any Daysman betwixt us, that might lay his hand upon us both.” This is exactly what Christ did, and what God accomplished through Him.

II. JOB’S CONCEPTION OF GOD’S OMNIPOTENCE (Job 10:8-12)

This is an age in which we need a renewed vision of God’s omnipotent power. The world is humanizing God, and deifying man. Contrary to all of this, Job confessed his own nothingness, and God’s eternal almightiness.

1. Job said, “Thine hands have made me.” Job saw the finger of God fashioning him together around about. He felt that God was the One who had brought him into the world. Herein is a vital confession of faith, If we do not believe in the creative God, how can we believe in the God that cares for His own! When man rejects God as Creator, he has prepared his heart to reject God along every other line of human provision. If man came into existence, apart from the great I AM, he can continue his existence apart from Him.

2. Job said, “Thou hast clothed me.” Job referred first of all to his skin, bones, and sinews. He felt that the God who had made him out of the clay, had clothed his body with everything necessary for its physical perfectness. This is true. Not only, however, does God clothe us with skin, but He clothes us with raiment.

The God we serve is the God who clothes the lily of the field. He is the God who feeds the birds of the air. There is not a sparrow that falls without His notice. Are we not of more value than the flowers of the field? and the birds of the air?

3. Job said, “Thou hast granted me life.” The faith of Job recognized the hand of God in every favor that had been granted to him during the years of his sojourning. He acknowledged that God had preserved his spirit. He realized that apart from God, he would have known naught of blessing.

III. JOB’S HOPE OF SALVATION (Job 13:15-16)

1. Job’s unswerving fidelity. We are all willing to grant the supremacy of Job’s trial. Few, if any, among men, ever suffered more than he. Satan had blatantly said to God, “Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life. But put forth Thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse Thee to Thy face.” Satan, under God’s permission, had done his full part in touching Job’s bones and flesh; and yet, in the height of Job’s sore trial he said, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.”

Let us ask ourselves the question, Do we possess a stronger faith? How many, in the hour of their affliction, complain at God? Some receive His good things without a word of praise; but the moment they suffer they complain.

2. Job’s determinate purpose. Job said, “I will maintain mine own ways before Him.” Come what may Job was determined to go through with the Lord. His face was set like a flint. His love and trust was unswerving. Even while he groaned under his burden, the eye of his faith pierced the clouds, and he renewed his vows.

In the Song of Songs is this statement, “Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it.” Job’s life was a proof of this.

3. Job’s certainty of salvation. In verse sixteen Job cried, “He also shall be my salvation.” This prayer reminds us of the prayer of Jonah as he lay in the fish’s belly, cast out of God’s sight, and with the reeds wrapped about his neck. Jonah said, “Salvation is of the Lord.”

IV. JOB’S VIEW OF THE LIFE TO COME (Job 14:14)

Job lay in shame and spitting, his body was so broken under the power of his disease, that men were astonished at him. Mark then Job’s stirring words:-“If a man die, shall he live again? all the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come.”

Not for one moment should we imagine that Job’s faith did not look through his grief and physical pain, to the hour of the resurrection. With his very being filled with hope, and with the intensity of undaunted faith, he cried, “Oh that my words were now written! oh that they were printed in a book! That they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever!”

What was it that so thrilled the sufferer, Job? What was it that he wanted written indelibly, so that the ages to come might know his faith?

1. Job wanted men to know his supreme assurance:-“I know that my Redeemer liveth.” We cannot but think of the blind man who did not know many things, but who said, “One thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see.”

There were many things that Job did not know and could not understand; yet, one thing he did know,-He knew that his Redeemer lived.

2. Job wanted men to know the basis of his hope:-“That He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth.”

Job not only had a living Redeemer, but a Redeemer who was destined to come in the latter days, and stand upon the earth. We who love Job’s Redeemer know also: “His feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east.”

3. Job wanted men to know the fruition of his hope:- “And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.”

In after years Job’s Redeemer said, “Because I live, ye shall live also.” That was exactly what Job foresaw, and what Job wanted indelibly engraved on a rock. He knew that his Redeemer lived, and that his Redeemer would stand upon the earth. He knew, therefore, that he too should live; that his body, though destroyed by worms, should yet arise, and that he, in his flesh, should see God.

4. Job wanted men to know the personality of his hope. “Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me.” Was ever faith more sublime? Was ever hope more undaunted? Did ever faith shine with a stronger hue, through darker clouds? Job could say, “Though my reins be consumed within me (that is, though my sorrows overwhelm me, and the bitterness of my cup engulf me), yet, through it all, beyond it all, and over it all, I, myself, and not another, in my behalf, shall see the Lord.”

V. JOB’S SOUL LONGING AFTER GOD (Job 23:3)

There was no desire in Job’s heart to rebel against God and to put God out of his life. He felt himself chastened, indeed, and sorely tried. He thought that God had lifted up His hand against him. Yet, Job’s great spirit sought to kiss the hand that smote him. Job said, “Oh that I knew where I might find Him! that I might come even to His seat!”

Has your soul ever been athirst after God? Have you ever cried with the Psalmist? “As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after Thee, O God.” Have you ever cried with the Shulamite and with Job? “I sought Him whom my soul loveth: I sought Him, but I found Him not.”

1. Job sought the Lord for strength. Job said, “I would order my cause before Him, and fill my mouth with arguments.”

Did Job think that God, like his false friends, would argue against him, and condemn him? Nay, Job said, “Will He plead against me with His great power? No; but He would put strength in me.”

Was Job’s idea of God not correct? Did the Lord not seek the prisoner to set him free? Did He not come to bind up the brokenhearted, and to proclaim, liberty to the captives? No man, suing for mercy and pleading grace, need have any fear in coming into the presence of God.

2. Job recognized God’s leadership. Job looked on the left hand, but he beheld Him not. He looked on the right hand, but he could not see Him. Job moved forward, but God was not there, and backward, but he did not perceive Him. Nevertheless, though Job could not see God, he knew that God saw him, and with the exultant cry of confident faith, Job said, “He knoweth the way that I take.”

3. Job had faith in his ultimate deliverance. Job said, “When He hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.”

Every trial for the present time seemeth grievous, but afterward it worketh out for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.

Job seemed to know that of which Peter afterward wrote, “The God of all grace, who hath called us unto His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while.” How sublime the faith that could say, “I shall come forth as gold”!

AN ILLUSTRATION

Fourteen Japanese sailors were picked up in their lifeboat in the middle of the Pacific ocean after they had abandoned their ship which was disabled in a terrific storm. Earthly sailors do not know whether they will reach port when they embark. Storms may prevent them from reaching their desired haven. But the sailors of Jesus Christ, after having embarked on the good ship, Salvation, are sure that they will be able to weather all storms, and finally make port triumphantly, with banners flying and with a victorious shout of eternal safety. The certainty of this sure triumph gives us a brave heart to “fear none of the things which we shall suffer,” for we know that the ship on which rides the “Captain of our Salvation” will outride all the waves that can come. Let us stick to the old ship. She will make port.-C. S. B.

Fuente: Neighbour’s Wells of Living Water

Job 19:23-24. O that my words were now written! Either, 1st, All his foregoing discourses with his friends, which he was so far from disowning or being ashamed of, that he was desirous all ages should know them, that they might judge between him and them, and decide whose cause was better, and whose arguments were stronger: or, rather, 2d, The words which he was now about to speak, containing a remarkable confession of his faith. O that they were printed in a book! Or, rather, inserted, or recorded (as the word , jochaku, signifies) in a register. The word printed is certainly used very improperly here, as being a term expressive of an art invented only about three hundred and fifty years ago: and, especially as it does not, even by an improper expression, as Dr. Dodd justly observes, convey the idea of Job, which was the perpetuating his words; records, to which Job refers, being written, not printed among us. Observe, reader, that which Job wished for, God granted. His words are written in Gods book, are entered and preserved in the divine records. So that, wherever those records are read, there shall this glorious confession be declared for a memorial of him. That they were graven with an iron pen Of which there is also mention Jer 17:1; and lead Job here alludes to the ancient custom of graving the letters on stone or marble, and then filling them up with lead, to render the inscription more legible and lasting. The LXX. however, do not seem to have understood Job thus, but rather to have supposed that he meant the recording of his words, by engraving them on plates of lead. Their words are, , To be engraven with an iron pen and lead, (that is, upon lead,) or on the rocks. And it is very probable it was customary in those times to engrave inscriptions on plates of lead as well as on stones. One of these ways of engraving must have been intended by Job; for it would be absurd to suppose, that he meant to have the inscription cut on stone with a leaden pen, which could make no impression on so hard a material.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Job’s confidence in God 19:23-29

"But it is just here, when everything is blackest, that his faith . . . like the rainbow in the cloud . . . shines with a marvelous splendor." [Note: W. B. MacLeod, The Afflictions of the Righteous, p. 172.]

This short section contains probably the best-known verses in the book (Job 19:23-27). They are an affirmation of Job’s great faith in God. One writer argued that Job was not expressing hope but despair because he believed God could vindicate him but would not do so before he died. [Note: Theophile J. Meek, "Job xix 25-27," Vetus Testamentum 6 (1956):100-103. James K. Zink, "Impatient Job," Journal of Biblical Literature 84:2 (June 1965):147-52.]

"One might even call Job the first Protestant, in the fullest sense of the word. He takes his stand upon individual faith rather than yielding to pious dogma." [Note: Philip Yancey, "When the Facts Don’t Add Up," Christianity Today, June 13, 1986, p. 21.]

God granted Job’s request in Job 19:23-24 better than he could have expected. Probably what he had in mind in Job 19:24 was that someone would chisel letters out of a massive rock and pour in lead making the letters even more prominent and permanent.

Job proceeded to reach out to God in faith (Job 19:25). Who is the redeemer to whom Job referred? Probably he is the same person he requested elsewhere, when he called for a legal arbiter between himself and God (Job 9:33), who would be a witness and an advocate for him (Job 16:19). In this case, too, Job seems to have thought of a person other than God. [Note: Parsons, pp. 148-49, 156-57.] However, he may have been God Himself, in view of Job’s confident statement that he believed he would see God (Job 19:26). [Note: Hartley, p. 294.]

"The Old Testament records several notable instances where people such as Abraham, Moses and Isaiah ’saw’ God, and Job doubtless has something similar in mind." [Note: Andersen, p. 193.]

The advocate of Job 16:19 was in heaven. This opens the possibility for a divine witness, as mentioned earlier. Nevertheless Job called him a man, and this points to a person other than God. The word "redeemer" in Hebrew (goel) means one who provided legal protection for a close relative who could not defend himself or herself (cf. Lev 25:23-25; Lev 25:47-55; Num 35:19-27; Rth 4:4-15; 2Sa 14:11; 1Ki 16:11; Psa 119:154; Pro 23:11; Jer 50:34).

"In pagan theology a personal patron-deity acted as a champion for an individual human, pleading his cause in the council of the gods. In the Book of Job the angels perform this role. In Job 33:23 Elihu clearly presented his theology of angels that took the place of the pagan servant-deities. He employed the very root (mls) used in Job 16:20 to describe Job’s ’Intercessor.’ In each of these Advocate passages, the third party is greater than man; and in chapter 16 he lives in heaven. Yet he is fully capable of taking his stand to testify on earth (Job 19:25)." [Note: Smick, "Job," p. 942.]

Job was confident that his redeemer, whomever he may have had in mind, would take up his cause and vindicate him, either before [Note: Hartley, p. 296.] or after Job died. [Note: Rowley, p. 138.] He added that this person would take His stand on earth "at the last" (i.e., finally, not at the end of time). In other words, this person would have the last word.

The Hebrew word translated "earth" (Job 19:25) literally means "dust." Does this word refer to the grave (cf. Job 7:21; Job 17:16; Job 20:11; Job 21:26; Job 34:15) or the earth (cf. Job 5:6; Job 8:19; Job 14:8; Job 41:33 NASB margin)? Earth seems to be the better possibility because it involves a simpler explanation. If this is the case, Job believed his redeemer would vindicate him in the presence of people who were living on the earth eventually.

Job probably described his skin as flayed (Job 19:26) to picture his painful death, not that he expected God to flay him while he was alive. He believed he would see God after his death. He evidently saw no hope of vindication before he died.

"Though there is no full grasping of a belief in a worthwhile Afterlife with God, this passage is a notable landmark in the progress toward such a belief." [Note: Ibid., p. 140.]

The "another" person of Job 19:27 is another beside God, not another beside Job. Job would see God Himself. Evidently Job expected to see God after death, but there is no indication in the text that Job knew God would resurrect his body after he died. He believed in life after death, but he evidently did not know about the certain resurrection of the body. This revelation came from God after Job’s lifetime (cf. Isa 26:19; Dan 12:2; 1 Corinthians 15).

"While he was anticipating the doctrine of resurrection, he was not spelling out the teaching of a final resurrection for all the righteous." [Note: Smick, "Job," p. 943.]

Though Job may not have known who his Redeemer was, we now know that He was Jesus Christ (1Ti 2:5). In saying what he did, Job was uttering Messianic prophecy, though he probably did not realize he was doing so.

Having made this breakthrough of faith in God, Job seems less frantic hereafter in the book. He now saw his sufferings in the light of eternity, not just in his lifetime. When we can help people gain this perspective on their sufferings, we will find that they, too, find some relief.

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)