1 Job answered:
2 How long will you vex me,
crush me with your words?
3 Ten times now you have reviled me,
you have attacked me shamelessly.
4 If indeed I am at fault,
I alone am concerned with it.
5 If you want to gloat over me
and use my humiliation as argument,
6 know then that God has treated me unfairly
and surrounded me with torment.
7 Though I cry injustice I am not heard;
though I call for help it is in vain.
8 He has blocked my way to prevent me from passing;
he has shrouded my path and made it dark.
9 He has stripped me of honor,
and removed the crown from my head.
10 On every side he tears me down
and uproots my hope till it is gone.
11 He directs his anger against me
and counts me as his enemy.
12 Against me his troops build a siege ramp,
and around my tent they encamp.
In my flesh I shall see God
13 He has distanced me from my brothers,
completely estranged me from my friends.
14 My kinsfolk and companions have gone away;
my guests have forsaken me,
15 my maidservants count me as an alien
as if they had never known me
16 I summon my servant, but he does not answer,
even when I plead with him.
17 To my wife my breath is offensive;
to my own brothers I am loathsome.
18 Even little children ridicule me:
Come! let us make fun of him!
19 All my intimate friends detest me;
those I love have turned against me.
20 I have become skin and bone
and have escaped with only my gums.
21 Have pity my friends, have pity,
for God’s hand has struck me!
22 Why do you hound me as God does?
Will you never have enough of my flesh?
23 Oh, that my words were written,
or recorded on bronze
24 with an iron tool, a chisel
or engraved forever on rock!
25 For I know that my Redeemer lives,
and he, the last, will take his stand on earth.
26 I will be there behind my skin,
and in my flesh I shall see God.
27 With my own eyes I shall see him –
I and not another. How my heart yearns!
28 If you say, “We will pursue him!
let us find a charge against him”,
29 be afraid of the sword yourselves;
when Wrath is enflamed against wrong,
you will know there is judgment.
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Comments Job, Chapter 19
• 19.13 This poem in 19:13-22 deals with the destiny of the elderly and the sick who feel useless, the condition of a fallen man or woman, rejected by society and an object of repulsion for the relatives who can do nothing to help.
Here, halfway through the book, Job again strongly expresses his faith: I know that my Redeemer lives… and in my flesh I shall see God (vv. 25-26).
The very justice of God demands that he speak after all the speakers. God often waits for his servants to die to justify them, but in the end he will come as Redeemer or Liberator: all will see and hear (Wisdom 5). Such was the hope of the oppressed just of whom the Bible speaks, and of Jesus himself.
In fact, Job himself is not an oppressed person waiting to be liberated. What is more im portant for him is not to prevail in reasoning with his adversaries, but to see God and hear him (v.27).