Job 19

Job’s Reply to Bildad#sn Job is completely stunned by Bildad’s speech, and feels totally deserted by God and his friends. Yet from his despair a new hope emerges with a stronger faith. Even though he knows he will die in his innocence, he knows that God will vindicate him and that he will be conscious of the vindication. There are four parts to this reply: Job’s impatience with the speeches of his friends (2-6), God’s abandonment of Job and his attack (7-12), Job’s forsaken state and appeal to his friends (13-22), and Job’s confidence that he will be vindicated (23-29).

1Then Job answered:

2“How long will you torment me and crush me with your words?

3These ten times you have been reproaching me; you are not ashamed to attack me!

4But even if it were true that I have erred, my error remains solely my concern!

5If indeed you would exalt yourselves above me and plead my disgrace against me,

6know then that God has wronged me and encircled me with his net.

Job’s Abandonment and Affliction

7“If I cry out, ‘Violence!’ I receive no answer; I cry for help, but there is no justice.

8He has blocked my way so I cannot pass, and has set darkness over my paths.

9He has stripped me of my honor and has taken the crown off my head.

10He tears me down on every side until I perish; he uproots my hope like one uproots a tree.

11Thus his anger burns against me, and he considers me among his enemies.

12His troops advance together; they throw up a siege ramp against me, and they camp around my tent.

Job’s Forsaken State

13“He has put my relatives far from me; my acquaintances only turn away from me.

14My kinsmen have failed me; my friends have forgotten me.

15My guests and my servant girls consider me a stranger; I am a foreigner in their eyes.

16I summon my servant, but he does not respond, even though I implore him with my own mouth.

17My breath is repulsive to my wife; I am loathsome to my brothers.

18Even youngsters have scorned me; when I get up, they scoff at me.

19All my closest friends detest me; and those whom I love have turned against me.

20My bones stick to my skin and my flesh; I have escaped alive with only the skin of my teeth.

21Have pity on me, my friends, have pity on me, for the hand of God has struck me.

22Why do you pursue me like God does? Will you never be satiated with my flesh?

Job’s Assurance of Vindication

23“O that my words were written down, O that they were written on a scroll,

24that with an iron chisel and with lead they were engraved in a rock forever!

25As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and that as the last he will stand upon the earth.

26And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God,

27whom I will see for myself, and whom my own eyes will behold, and not another. My heart grows faint within me.

28If you say, ‘How we will pursue him, since the root of the trouble is found in him!’

29Fear the sword yourselves, for wrath brings the punishment by the sword, so that you may know that there is judgment.”