Job 19

Then Job answered:

1Then Job answered and said,

2"How long will you torment me and crush me to pieces with your words?

2How long will ye vex my soul, and break me in pieces with words?

Note"Torment my soul" in the older wording: in Hebrew the word translated "soul" means the whole living person (a life, a self), not an immaterial part of someone. Job is saying they are wearing him out, not attacking something inside him.

3Ten times now you have insulted me. You feel no shame about the way you wrong me.

3These ten times have ye reproached me: ye are not ashamed that ye make yourselves strange to me.

Note"Ten times" is a round number meaning "over and over," the way we say "a hundred times." Job is not counting speeches. The King James "ye make yourselves strange to me" translates a verb whose sense is disputed: it may mean "you treat me as a stranger" or "you wrong me shamelessly."

4Even if it is true that I have gone wrong, my mistake is my own business.

4And be it indeed that I have erred, mine error remaineth with myself.

5If you really mean to set yourselves above me and use my disgrace as proof against me,

5If indeed ye will magnify yourselves against me, and plead against me my reproach:

6then understand this: it is God who has wronged me and closed his net around me.

6Know now that God hath overthrown me, and hath compassed me with his net.

NoteThe net is a hunter's net, thrown or spread to trap birds and game. It is a standard image in Hebrew poetry for being caught with no way out, and it names God as the hunter.

7Listen: I cry out, 'I am being treated with violence!', but no one answers. I call for help, but there is no justice.

7Behold, I cry out of wrong, but I am not heard: I cry aloud, but there is no judgment.

Note"I am being treated with violence" translates a single Hebrew word, ḥamas, that worked as a public cry for help against a crime, roughly like shouting "Murder!" in a street and expecting neighbors and elders to come running and hold a hearing. Job is saying he raised the legal alarm and nobody came.

8He has walled up my road so I cannot get through, and he has covered my paths with darkness.

8He hath fenced up my way that I cannot pass, and he hath set darkness in my paths.

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

9He hath stripped me of my glory, and taken the crown from my head.

NoteJob was not a king. Stripping off a robe and lifting off a crown are images for the loss of public standing and respect that a wealthy, honored man carried in his community.

10He tears me down on every side until I am gone. He pulls up my hope by the roots, like a tree.

10He hath destroyed me on every side, and I am gone: and mine hope hath he removed like a tree.

11His anger burns against me, and he treats me as one of his enemies.

11He hath also kindled his wrath against me, and he counteth me unto him as one of his enemies.

12His troops advance together. They pile up a ramp to attack me and set up camp all around my tent.

12His troops come together, and raise up their way against me, and encamp round about my tabernacle.

NoteAttacking armies built a ramp of packed earth against a city wall so troops could climb over it. Job's point is the mismatch: the full siege machinery of a nation is being brought against one man's tent.

13He has driven my brothers far away from me, and the people I know have become strangers to me.

13He hath put my brethren far from me, and mine acquaintance are verily estranged from me.

Note"Brothers" here covers blood brothers and the wider circle of male relatives; in this culture that circle carried a duty to stand by a man in trouble. Their absence is not just loneliness but abandonment by the people obliged to help.

14My relatives have given up on me, and my close friends have forgotten me.

14My kinsfolk have failed, and my familiar friends have forgotten me.

15The guests in my house and my servant women count me as a stranger. In their eyes I am a foreigner.

15They that dwell in mine house, and my maids, count me for a stranger: I am an alien in their sight.

Note"The guests in my house" are longer-term residents, dependents and protected houseguests living under Job's roof and eating at his expense. A host's guests owed him honor, and servants owed him obedience, so being counted a stranger by his own household inverts the normal order completely.

16I call my servant, and he does not answer, even when I beg him with my own mouth.

16I called my servant, and he gave me no answer; I intreated him with my mouth.

17My breath disgusts my wife, and I plead with the children born from my own body.

17My breath is strange to my wife, though I intreated for the children’s sake of mine own body.

NoteThe Hebrew phrase behind "the children born from my own body" is ambiguous. It can mean Job's own children, or, since the word is literally "the sons of my womb," it can mean the sons of the womb that bore him: that is, his brothers. Translators divide on which is meant.

18Even small boys look down on me. When I stand up, they mock me.

18Yea, young children despised me; I arose, and they spake against me.

19All my closest friends find me disgusting, and the people I loved have turned against me.

19All my inward friends abhorred me: and they whom I loved are turned against me.

20My bones cling to my skin and my flesh, and I have barely escaped with my life.

20My bone cleaveth to my skin and to my flesh, and I am escaped with the skin of my teeth.

NoteThe first line describes extreme emaciation: nothing left but skin over bone. The second line is a proverb whose exact sense is uncertain, since teeth have no skin: it seems to mean escaping with nothing, or by the narrowest possible margin. This verse is where the English expression "by the skin of my teeth" comes from.

21Have pity on me, have pity on me, you who are my friends, because the hand of God has struck me.

21Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O ye my friends; for the hand of God hath touched me.

Note"The hand of God" is a standard Hebrew way of speaking about God's power in action; a hand that "touches" or "strikes" means a blow has landed. Job is telling his friends he has already been hit hard enough.

22Why do you hunt me down the way God does? Will you never get your fill of my flesh?

22Why do ye persecute me as God, and are not satisfied with my flesh?

Note"Eat someone's flesh" was an idiom for tearing a person apart with accusations and slander, the way a predator or scavenger works over a carcass. Job is comparing his friends' talk to animals feeding on him.

23How I wish my words were written down! How I wish they were recorded in a book!

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

NoteA "book" here means a scroll. The King James word "printed" is from 1611, long before it meant machine printing; it means inscribed or written down.

24How I wish they were cut with an iron tool and filled with lead, or carved into rock to last forever!

24That they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever!

NoteThis describes a known method for permanent inscriptions: the letters were cut into rock with an iron chisel or stylus, then molten lead was poured into the grooves so the writing stood out white against dark stone and would survive weathering. It was how a record was made to outlast the person who made it.

25For I know that my defender lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth.

25For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth:

NoteThe word behind "defender" (King James "redeemer") is go'el, a legal term for a man's nearest able relative. The go'el had specific duties: to buy back family land that had been sold off, to buy a relative out of debt-slavery, to pursue the killer of a murdered kinsman, and to take up a relative's case when he could not defend himself. It is a family-law word, not a religious title. "Stand upon the earth" uses the verb for rising to one's feet to speak in a legal hearing; the noun can mean the earth, the ground, or the dust of the grave, and translators disagree about which is meant here.

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

26And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God:

NoteThis verse is one of the hardest in the book. The Hebrew preposition can mean either "from within my flesh" (that is, while still embodied) or "from outside my flesh" (that is, apart from a body), and the first line's verb has no stated subject, so it may be "after my skin has been destroyed" or "after they have destroyed my skin." The rendering picks one reading; the original leaves it open.

27I will see him myself. My own eyes will look at him, and no one else's. My heart is worn out with longing inside me.

27Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me.

NoteThe King James "my reins" means the kidneys. Hebrew located strong feeling in the internal organs, kidneys and bowels, the way English locates it in the heart. The line means Job is exhausted by longing, though some read it as literal physical wasting.

28But you should be asking, 'Why do we keep hounding him?', since the root of this trouble is found in me.

28But ye should say, Why persecute we him, seeing the root of the matter is found in me?

Note"The root of the matter" means the cause or origin of the trouble, the friends' claim that the fault lies in Job himself. Ancient copies differ here between "in me" and "in him," which is why translations of this verse vary.

29Be afraid of the sword yourselves, because wrath brings punishment by the sword. Then you will know there is a judgment."

29Be ye afraid of the sword: for wrath bringeth the punishments of the sword, that ye may know there is a judgment.

Note"The sword" stands for violent punishment generally, whether by an enemy, a court, or God. Job is warning his friends that the same standard of judgment they are applying to him can fall on them.