Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 19:6
Know now that God hath overthrown me, and hath compassed me with his net.
6. Know now ] Or, as we say, know then. The word God is emphatic.
overthrown me ] More probably, perverted my right ( Job 19:7); this, not his guilt, is the explanation of his afflictions. By his reference to the “net” of God Job repudiates the statements of Bildad, ch. Job 18:8 seq.; it was not his own feet that led him into the net, God had thrown it about him.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Know now that God – Understand the case; and in order that they might, he goes into an extended description of the calamities which God had brought upon him. He wished them to be fully apprised of all that he had suffered at the hand of God.
Hath overthrown me – The word used here ( avath) means to bend, to make crooked or curved; then to distort, prevert: them to overturn, to destroy; Isa 24:1; Lam 3:9. The meaning here is, that he had been in a state of prosperity, but that God had completely reversed everything.
And hath compassed me with his net – Has sprung his net upon me as a hunter does, and I am caught. Perhaps there may be an allusion here to what Bildad said in Job 18:8 ff, that the wicked would be taken in his own snares. Instead of that, Job says that God had sprung the snare upon him – for reasons which he could not understand, but in such a manner as should move the compassion of his friends.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Job 19:6-7
Know new that God has overthrown me.
The difficulties of unbelief
One thing is to be noticed, with both Job and his friends the existence of God is a part of the problem, not to be discharged from it even hypothetically. The misfortunes of the good, the prosperity of the wicked, the inequalities and the caprices of fate–these are just what have to be reconciled with the existence of a just and all-powerful God. The discussion starts from the supposition of a temporal Providence. All the debate is on what the debaters take to be religious ground. In a certain sense, the idea of God introduces a difficulty into the discussion. If we could look out upon the world as if it had no moral order dependent upon the will of One infinitely good and wise, then the particular difficulty of reconciling things as they are with any worthy conception of Divine power and goodness would suddenly disappear. It is suggested that, when a belief in God is dropped, the difficulty and confusion will disappear. The world, it is true, will be no brighter for the abandonment of faith; but at least no delusive marshfires will lead us astray from the true objects of life. We shall know neither whence we came, nor whither we are going; but we shall live our little day, neither vexed by vain questionings, nor relying upon baseless hopes. No doubt this is true to a certain extent, but only to that limited extent which involves essential and absolute untruth. Theism brings its own difficulties with it into the physical and moral problem of the universe. But what right have we to suppose that any hypothesis, as alone we can conceive it, will explain everything? And have we not the right to turn round upon rival theories, and ask if they can explain more than ours, or whether to them the mystery of the world is not mysterious still? Theism, with all that it is commonly held to involve, is an explanation of the mysteries of nature and of life; but not a complete explanation. Taking its pretensions at the lowest, and the least, it gathers up the facts of life into a unity, and supplies us with a theory in the light of which they may be correlated and understood. More than this, it furnishes a practical rule of living. It is precisely this which the opposite theory cannot do. The very necessity of its nature is to explain nothing. It leaves the obscurities of life just as it finds them. Pain and sin and loss are with it ultimate facts; nor has it the faintest glimmer of light to throw upon their absolute blackness The case might be different had human nature no side of relation to the infinite, or even were that relation apprehended only by one here and there. The mystery of the universe would be nothing to us if we had no faculty of knowing and feeling it. But, with a few and partial exceptions, this attempt to pass beyond the finite into the infinite belongs ineradicably to us all. A shrewd thinker once said, that if there were not a God, it would be necessary to invent one. Men will never permanently consent to the narrowing of power and life. Eternity and infinity may still hold their secrets in inexorable grasp, but we shall never cease to go in search of them, and to hold ourselves higher and better for the quest. Granting for a moment that these aspirations and longings are mistakes, remnants of a lower state, things out of which we shall grow, is the aspect of the case materially altered? I am still face to face with the facts of existence: I have still to meet, and bear, and make the best of my fate. We cannot permanently silence curiosity as to the universe simply by rejecting a single familiar explanation of it. In ceasing to believe in a God, you bare made absolutely no progress in explaining the mystery of the universe. You have only returned to the standpoint of absolute uncertainty and blank perplexity. Take the mystery of pain, and its correlative mystery of wrong–evil, that is, on its physical and on its moral side. Theism will not explain it. It points out palliations of it. It suggests that it is related to the power of choice in man, and so necessary to the moral government of the world. Still, these answers do not cover the whole question. But is Atheism better off or worse? Are pain and wrong any more endurable, any less weight upon the sympathetic conscience, because they are looked upon as bare, blank, absolutely unexplained facts? Atheism escapes from the characteristic difficulties of Theism only at the price of encumbering itself with a difficulty of its own. According to any theory, there is at least a set of humanity in an upward direction. Theism has hard work to account for the evil in the world; Can Atheism explain the good? How should the whole creation move, to one far-off event, and rise upon the circling wheels of time higher and ever higher, unless at the call and under the inspiration of God? One more illustration. We all know too well the meaning of human waste and loss. You tell me this is simply a matter of physical law. But, in so saying, have you explained what needs explanation? I cannot answer those questions, I know; but dream not that they do not weigh upon you too. You have to face them as well as I, and to bear the heartache, and the desolation, and the thought of severance, without the hope of immortality, and the stay of a Divine presence. (C. Beard, B. A.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 6. Know now that God hath overthrown me] The matter is between him and me, and he has not commissioned you to add reproaches to his chastisements.
And hath compassed me with his net.] There may be an allusion here to the different modes of hunting which have been already referred to in the preceding chapter. But if we take the whole verse together, and read the latter clause before the former, thus, “Know, therefore, that God hath encompassed me with his net, and overthrown me;” the allusion may be to an ancient mode of combat practised among the ancient Persians, ancient Goths, and among the Romans. The custom among the Romans was this: “One of the combatants was armed with a sword and shield, the other with a trident and net. The net he endeavoured to cast over the head of his adversary, in which, when he succeeded, the entangled person was soon pulled down by a noose that fastened round the neck, and then despatched. The person who carried the net and trident was called Retiarius, and the other who carried the sword and shield was termed Secutor, or the pursuer, because, when the Retiarius missed his throw, he was obliged to run about the ground till he got his net in order for a second throw, while the Secutor followed hard to prevent and despatch him.” The Persians in old times used what was called [Persic] kumund, the noose. It was not a net, but a sort of running loop, which horsemen endeavoured to cast over the heads of their enemies that they might pull them off their horses.
That the Goths used a hoop net fastened to a pole, which they endeavoured to throw over the heads of their foes, is attested by Olaus Magnus, Hist. de Gentibus Septentrionalibus, Rom. 1555, lib. xi., cap. 13, De diversis Modis praeliandi Finnorum. His words are, Quidam restibus instar retium ferinorum ductilibus sublimi jactatione utuntur: ubi enim cum hoste congressi sunt, injiciunt eos restes quasi laqueos in caput resistentis, ut equum aut hominem ad se trahant. “Some use elastic ropes, formed like hunting nets, which they throw aloft; and when they come in contact with the enemy, they throw these ropes over the head of their opponent, and by this means they can then drag either man or horse to themselves.” At the head of the page he gives a wood-cut representing the net, and the manner of throwing it over the head of the enemy. To such a device Job might allude, God hath encompassed me with his NET, and overthrown me.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Know now; consider what I am now saying.
Hath overthrown me; hath grievously afflicted me in all kinds; therefore it ill becomes you to aggravate my miseries; and if my passions, hereby raised, have broken forth into some extravagant and unmeet expressions, I might expect your pity and favourable construction, and not such severe censures and reproaches. Heb. God hath perverted me, i.e. either my state or condition, as was now said, or my right and cause. He oppresseth me with power, and will not give me a fair hearing, as it follows, Job 19:7. He giveth me very hard measure, and dealeth worse with me than I might in reason and justice expect from so wise and good a God. This is a harsh reflection upon God; but such passages have sometimes come from good men, when under sore afflictions and temptations, which was Jobs case.
With his net, i.e. with afflictions on every side, so that I cannot escape, nor get any freedom to come to him and plead with him, as I desire.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
6. compassed . . . netalludingto Bildad’s words (Job 18:8).Know, that it is not that I as a wicked man have been caught in my”own net”; it is God who has compassed me inHiswhy, I know not.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Know now that God hath overthrown me,…. He would have them take notice that all his afflictions were from the hand of God; and therefore should take care to what they imputed any acts of his, whose ways are unsearchable, and the reasons of them not to be found out; and therefore, if a wrong construction should be put upon them, which may be easily done by weak sighted men, it must be displeasing to him. Job had all along from the first ascribed his afflictions to God, and he still continued to do so; he saw his hand in them all; whoever were the instruments, it was God that had overthrown him, or cast him down from an high to a very low estate; that had taken away his substance, his children, and his wealth: or “hath perverted me” l; not that God had made him perverse, or was the cause or occasion of any perverseness in him, either in his words or in his actions, or had perverted his cause, and the judgment of it; Job could readily answer to those questions of Bildad, “doth God pervert judgment? or doth the Almighty pervert justice?” and say, no, he doth not; but he is to be understood in the same sense as the church is, when she says, see La 3:9; “he hath made my path crooked”; where the same word is used as here; and both she and Job mean that God had brought them into cross, crooked, and afflictive dispensations:
and hath compassed me with his net; and which also designs affliction, which is God’s net, which he has made, ordained, and makes use of; which he lays for his people, and takes them in, and draws them to himself, and prevents them committing sin, and causes to issue in their good; see La 1:13.
l “pervertit me”, Montanus, Mercerus; so Vatablus, Drusius, Schultens.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(6) Know now that God hath overthrown me.Bildad had spoken a great deal about the wicked being snared by his own sin, and now Job, without actually quoting his wordsfor he uses a word for net that Bildad had not usedspeaks to their substance. It is God who has taken him in His net and compassed him about therewith. This is the assertion he has made before (Job. 16:7; Job. 13:27, &c.).
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
First division NONE OTHER THAN GOD COULD BE THE AUTHOR OF SUCH CALAMITIES AS THOSE THAT HAVE BEFALLEN Job , vv6-20.
First strophe Job admits that it is impossible that a calamity bearing such marks of design (comp. Job 19:6 with Job 18:8-10) one, too, so complete and overwhelming should have proceeded from any other than God, who consistently turns a deaf ear to his solemn appeals, Job 19:6-12.
Satan so contrived the misfortunes, and especially the disease, of Job, as to convince him that they must be the work of God, hoping the more assuredly to wreck his faith. See note on Job 1:15, and Job 19:21.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
6. Overthrown me Others read, perverted, wrested me.
With his net The net was frequently used in ancient warfare for the purpose of entangling, and thus more easily destroying, an enemy. Kitto ( Pict. Bible) cites an instance in history (about 600 years before Christ) of a single combat between the commanders of the Athenian and Mitylenean forces; the latter (Pittacus, one of the famous seven sages) concealed behind his shield a net, in which, throwing it suddenly, he entangled the Athenian general, and easily slew him. “Bildad had said that the wicked would be taken in his own snares. Job says that God has ensnared him.” Elzas.
Job Complains of the Neglect he Suffers
v. 6. Know now that God hath overthrown me, v. 7. Behold, I cry out of wrong, v. 8. He hath fenced up my way, v. 9. He hath stripped me of my glory, v. 10. He hath destroyed me on every side, v. 11. He hath also kindled His wrath against me, v. 12. His troops come together, v. 13. He hath put my brethren far from me, v. 14. My kinsfolk, v. 15. They that dwell in mine house, v. 16. I called my servant, and he gave me no answer, v. 17. My breath is strange to my wife, v. 18. Yea, young children, v. 19. All my inward friends, v. 20. My bone cleaveth to my skin and to my flesh, v. 21. Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O ye my friends; for the hand of God hath touched me, v. 22. Why do ye persecute me as God, Job 19:6 Know now that God hath overthrown me, and hath compassed me with his net.
Ver. 6. Know that God hath overthrown me ] Do not you therefore add affliction to the afflicted, which is so odious a thing to God, Psa 41:2 ; Psa 69:26 ; but regard the greatness of mine evils, which draw these complaints from me that seem so immoderate to you. See Job 6:2 (Diodati).
And hath compassed me with his net GOD. Hebrew Eloah. App-4.
God: Job 7:20, Job 16:11-14, Psa 44:9-14, Psa 66:10-12
compassed: Job 18:8-10, Lam 1:12, Lam 1:13, Eze 12:13, Eze 32:3, Hos 7:12
Reciprocal: Rth 1:20 – dealt Job 10:17 – war Job 22:10 – snares Job 30:21 – become cruel Job 32:13 – God Job 35:2 – My Job 36:8 – if Job 40:2 – he that reproveth Psa 66:11 – broughtest
Job 19:6-7. Know now Consider well, that God hath overthrown me Hath grievously afflicted me in various ways, and therefore it ill becomes you to aggravate my miseries. Hebrew, , gnivetani; hath perverted me; either my state and condition, as has now been said: or my right and cause. He oppresseth me with power, and will not give me a fair hearing, as it follows, Job 19:7. This is a harsh reflection on God: but such thoughts and expressions have sometimes proceeded from good men when they have been under sore afflictions and temptations, which was now Jobs case. And hath compassed me with his net With afflictions on every side, so that I cannot escape, nor obtain freedom to plead with him as I desire. Behold, I cry out of wrong Hebrew, , etsgnack chamas, literally, I cry out injury! violence! namely, from my friends, who show me no pity, but condemn me without cause, and rob me of my good name; or from the Sabeans and Chaldeans, who have plundered me of my substance. Perhaps he also meant to complain that God himself treated him with rigorous justice, and not according to the mercy and benignity which he was wont to show to upright and good men. I cry aloud, but there is no judgment Neither God nor man relieves or pities me. God, for a time, may seem to turn away his ear from his people, to be angry at their prayers, and overlook their appeals to him, and they must be excused if in that case they complain bitterly. Wo unto us if God be against us.
19:6 Know now that God hath {c} overthrown me, and hath compassed me with his net.
(c) He breaks out again into his passions and declares still that his affliction comes from God though he is not able to feel the cause in himself.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes