HAYDOCK CATHOLIC BIBLE COMMENTARY ON THE OLD TESTAMENT

JOB 19

CHAPTER XIX.

Ver. 3. Ten times; very often. --- Oppress me. Heb. word occurs no where else, and is variously translated. It may signify, "to dig a pit for me." C. vi. 27. Ps. vi. 6. Job repeats nearly what he had said before, only with greater vehemence. He admits that Providence treats him in an unusual manner. Yet he still retains an assured hope, and arraigns his adversaries before the divine tribunal. C. --- Yet he rather hesitates; (v. 4. 6.) and this species of ignorance is the folly of which he, at last, accuses himself. C. xlii. 3. It was no real fault, ib. v. 8. H.

Ver. 4. With me. I alone am answerable for it. But I am no wiser for your remarks. If I have sinned, have I not been sufficiently punished? C. --- Sept. "Yea, truly, I was under a mistake; and the mistake still remains with me, to have spoken a word which was not becoming. But my speeches are erroneous and importunate." He talks thus ironically. H.

Ver. 5. Reproaches, which I endure, as if they were a sure proof of your assertion. H. -- I must therefore refute you. C.

Ver. 6. With an equal judgment. S. Gregory explains these words thus: Job being a just man, and truly considering his own life, thought that his affliction was greater than his sins deserved; and in that respect, that the punishment was not equal, yet it was just, as coming from God, who give a crown of justice to those who suffer for righteousness' sake, and proves the just with tribulations, as gold is tried by fire. Ch. --- He knew that God would surely give a just reward. 2 Tim. iv. S. Greg. xiv. 16. W. --- The friends of Job had too contracted a notion of Providence, supposing that the virtuous could not be afflicted. Job allowed that the ordinary rules were not here observed. Heb. "the Lord hath perverted or overthrown me." C. --- This gave him no small uneasiness. If the thing had been as plain as it appears now to us, he might have refuted all with a bare denial. Houbigant.

Ver. 7. Hear. Jeremias makes the same complaint, Lam. iii. 8. C.

Ver. 12. Troops: (latrones) "free-booters," (H.) or "soldiers." Sanctius. --- Those nations made a practice of plundering one another's territories, without any declaration of war. Mercury and Autolychus are praised for thefts of this description. Odys. xix. See Judg. xi. 3. Sept. "his temptations (C. or militia; peirathria) came rushing together upon me; lying down (H.) in ambush, (C.) they surrounded my paths." H.

Ver. 17. Entreated. Prot. add, "for the children's sake of mine own body." Sept. "I invited with flattering speeches the sons of my concubines. (18) But they cast me from them for ever. When I arise, they speak against me." H. --- Interpreters generally suppose that Job speaks of the children by his inferior wives: though he might have some at home by the first wife, who were not old enough to be invited to the feast, with those who were destroyed. C.

Ver. 18. Fools; wicked men, (M.) or the meanest of the people, (C.) whom (H.) these unnatural children (C.) resembled. Heb. "young children." Prot. H.

Ver. 19. Some. Heb. "men of my secret." Sept. "who knew me;" my most intimate friends. --- And he. Heb. and Sept. "They whom I love are." H. --- These ungratefully joined with the rest, in turning their backs on their benefactor. W.

Ver. 20. Teeth. I am like a skeleton, so strangely emaciated, and my flesh corrupted: even my bones are not entire. H. --- Heb. "I have escaped with the skin of my teeth." Only my gums are left. My bones cut the skin. Sym. "I tore my skin with my teeth."

Ver. 22. Flesh? acting with the like inhumanity towards me. Am I not then sufficiently tormented in you opinion, that you insult over my distress? C.

Ver. 24. In a. Heb. "lead, in the rock for ever." Prot. Sept. have, "for ever," after book, (v. 23) and subjoins, "with a writing instrument of iron and (or) lead, or be engraven on the rocks for a memorial." Grabe insinuates that before there was only, "and on lead, or be engraven on the rocks." H. --- Instrument, (celte) means "a chisel," (H.) like cÅ“lum from cÅ“lo: " I engrave." Pineda. --- S. Jerom, (ad Pam.) and the late editor of his works, retain this word, as the older editions of S. Greg. did; (C.) though certÃ¨, "surely," has been inserted instead, from several MSS. by the Benedictines. H. --- Ancient MSS. and Latin Bibles have more generally the latter word. But the received editions are supported by many MSS. (C.) and the Sept. egglufhnai, expresses as much. Celtis est, glufeion. Amama. Casaub. in Athen. vii. 20. p. 556. --- An inscription, in Dalmatia, has the same sense: Neque hic atramentum vel papyrus aut membrana ulla adhuc; sed malleolo et celte literatus silex. "Here as yet was neither ink, nor paper, nor any parchments; but a flint stone was lettered with a mallet and a chisel.." The former modes of writing were not, in effect, invented by the days of Job. C. --- But it was long very usual to make use of lead. Pineda. --- What he desired to have written in such durable characters, (H.) was the following sentence, in proof of his unshaken confidence in God, and as a refutation of his friends, who accused him of despair and blasphemy, (C.) as also the whole history of his conflict. His desire has been granted. T.

Ver. 25. Redeemer may be understood of the Deity, without confining it to the second Person; (Isai. xli. 14. and lxix. 7. Piscator) though it may have a more peculiar reference to Christ: (Junius. H.) in whom he believed, as the Redeemer of all mankind. C. --- Earth. Yea, ere long I shall be restored to health, (S. Chrys. Grot.) as an earnest and figure of the resurrection. Nothing is more common, in Scripture, than for the same prophecy to have a double accomplishment; one soon after it is made public, and another more sublime and remote. Job seemed to have no expectation of surviving his present misery, (v. 7, and C. vii. 7. and xxiv. 15.) unless God now revealed it to him, as a figure of his future resurrection, founded on the hope of our Saviour's, which he expresses in much clearer terms. Heb. "I know that my Redeemer is living, and that he will raise himself one day upon the earth," (C.) like a conqueror, (H.) or wrestler, having overthrown his antagonist: (Amama) or, "he will stand the last upon the earth, or dust," (Piscator) ascending his throne, to judge all. Deodat. --- Yet Luther translates, "and one day he will raise me up from the earth;" which is not conformable to the Heb. Others explain, "he...will place (26) this, my skin, after they (worms) shall have ruined it." Pagnin. Mont. --- But Amama suspects that the latter is not in earnest. Pineda defends the Vulg. and observes that yakum (H.) may signify, "will raise" himself, or "me;" the latter being at least a consequence of the former, if S. Jerom did not read it me in his copy. So S. Paul argues; If Christ be risen, we also shall rise again. Sept. "For I know that he is eternal, who will set me free," (H.) by death, (C. or redemption; ekluein) "upon the earth."

Ver. 26. And I. Sept. "But he will raise up my body or skin, which has sustained these things. This now has been accomplished for me by the Lord; (27) which I know within myself, which my eyes have seen, and not another. For all things are accomplished in my bosom." I am as fully convinced of this glorious event, (H.) as if it were past. C. --- Heb. "and though, after my skin, worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God." Prot. or in the margin, "After I shall awake, though this body be destroyed, yet out of," &c. Various other interpretations are given. H. --- But we had as well adhere to the Sept. Vulg. &c. D. --- God. Sixtus V. and some other editions, add "Saviour." C. --- Job would see the Messias by the eyes of his prosperity. S. Aug. or Faustus, ser. 234. t. v. App. Sanctius. --- He hoped also to see God face to face in glory (C.) though not by means of his corporeal eyes, (H.) and to be restored to favour, so that God would no longer turn his back on him. , C. xlii. 5. S. Gregory, when legate at Constantinople, convinced the patriarch Eutychius, by this text, that after the resurrection, our bodies will be palpable, and not aerial only. C. --- It contains an express profession of Job's faith, on this head. We shall rise the same in substance. W.

Ver. 27. Myself. Heb. "for myself," and for my comfort; not like the reprobate, who shall see their judge to their eternal confusion. Job insists so much on this point, that he shews he in not speaking merely of the divine favour being restored to him, in the re-establishment of his health and affairs, but that he raises his mind to something more solid and desirable, of which the former was only a faint representation. C. --- "No one since Christ has spoken so plainly of the resurrection, as this man did before the coming of the Messias." S. Jerom, ad Pam. --- This. Heb. "though my reins be consumed within me;" (Prot. H.) or, "my reins (desires and tender affections) are completed in my bosom." C.

Ver. 28. Let us. Sept. "Why do we contend against him? and the root of the word (reason) we shall find in him." He provokes us to speak thus. H. --- Hebrew reads, "in me." But the Chal. &c. "have him," as the sequel requires; unless Job speak this in his own person. I am ready to answer you; or, have you really discovered in me any grounds for your virulent attack? C.

Ver. 29. Know. Sept. "And then they shall know that their power is nowhere;" or, "where is their substance?" Grabe. H. --- Job menaces his friends with God's judgments, as they had done him. C.