Giobbe 19:9 Commento

This chapter is Job's answer to Bildad's discourse in the foregoing chapter. Though his spirit was grieved and much heated, and Bildad was very peevish, yet he gave him leave to say all he designed to say, and did not break in upon him in the midst of his argument; but, when he had done, he gave him a fair answer, in which, I. He complains of unkind usage. And very unkindly he takes it. 1. That his comforters added to his affliction (Job 19:2-7). 2. That his God was the author of his affliction (Job 19:8-12). 3. That his relations and friends were strange to him, and shy of him, in his affliction (Job 19:20-22). II. He comforts himself with the believing hopes of happiness in the other world, though he had so little comfort in this, making a very solemn confession of his faith, with a desire that it might be recorded as an evidence of his sincerity (Job 19:23-27). III. He concludes with a caution to his friends not to persist in their hard censures of him (Job 19:28, Job 19:29) If the remonstrance Job here makes of his grievances may serve sometimes to justify our complaints, yet his cheerful views of the future state, at the same time, may shame us Christians, and may serve to silence our complaints, or at least to balance them.

INTRODUCTION TO JOB 19 This chapter contains Job's reply to Bildad's second speech, in which he complains of the ill usage of his friends, of their continuing to vex him, and to beat, and bruise, and break him in pieces with their hard words, and to reproach him, and carry it strange to him, Job 19:1; which he thought was very cruel, since, if he was mistaken, the mistake lay with himself, Job 19:4; and if they were determined to go on at this rate, he would have them observe, that his afflictions were of God, and therefore should take care to what they imputed them, since he could not get the reasons of them, or his cause to be heard, though he vehemently and importunately sought it, Job 19:5; and then gives an enumeration of the several particulars of his distress, all which he ascribes to God, Job 19:8; and he enlarges upon that part of his unhappy case, respecting the alienation of his nearest relations, most intimate acquaintance and friends, from him, and their contempt of him, and the like treatment he met with from his servants, and even young children, Job 19:13; all which, with other troubles, had such an effect upon him as to reduce him to a mere skeleton, and which he mentions to move the pity of these his friends, now conversing with him, Job 19:20; and yet after all, and in the midst of it, and which was his great support under his trials, he expresses his strong faith in his living Redeemer, who should appear on the earth in the latter day, and be his Saviour, and in the resurrection of the dead through him, which he believed he should share in, and in all the happiness consequent on it; and he wishes this confession of his faith might be written and engraven, and be preserved on a rock for ever for the good of posterity, Job 19:23; and closes the chapter with an expostulation with his friends, dissuading them from persecuting him any longer, since there was no reason for it in himself, and it might be attended with bad consequences to them, Job 19:28.

He hath destroyed me on every side,.... To be "troubled on every side" is much, as the apostles were, Co2 4:8; but to be destroyed on every side, and all around, is more, and denotes utter destruction; it may have respect to the rein of his substance and family, which were all demolished at once; his oxen and asses, which were on one side, his camels on other, his sheep on another, and his children on another, and all destroyed in one day, and perhaps in a few hours; and also to his body, which God had made, and had fashioned together round about; but now he had suffered it to be smitten with ulcers from the crown of his head to the sole of his feet; and this earthly tabernacle of his was demolishing on every side, and just falling down; for the allusion is either to the demolition of a building, or to the rooting up of a tree, and so continued in the next clause; comparing himself to a tree, that is dug about on all sides, and its roots laid bare, and these and all their fibres cut off, so that it is utterly destroyed from growing any more, but becomes dead; and this Job thought to be his case: and I am gone; or am a dead man, just going out of the world, the way of all flesh; and because of the certainty of it, and of its being very quickly, in a few minutes, as it were, he speaks of it as if it already was: wherefore it follows, and my hope he hath removed like a tree; not like a tree that is cut down to its roots, which remain in the ground, and may sprout out again, Job 14:7; nor like a tree that is taken up with its roots, and removed to another place, and planted in another soil, where it may grow as well or better; but like a tree cut off from its roots, or pulled up by the roots, and laid upon the ground, when there can be no hope of its ever growing again; and so the hope of Job was like that; not his hope of salvation, of the resurrection of the dead, and of eternal life, which was strong and firm, Job 13:15; nor can a good and well grounded hope be removed; not the grace of hope, which is an abiding one; nor the ground of hope, which is Christ and his righteousness, upon which hope, as an anchor, being cast, is sure and steadfast; nor the object of hope, eternal glory and happiness laid up in heaven: but this is to be interpreted of Job's hope of a restoration to outward happiness, which his friends would have had him entertain, in case of repentance and reformation; but Job, as he was not sensible of his need of the one, as his friends understood it, he had no hope of the other, see Job 6:11.

He hath stripped me of my glory, and taken the crown from my head. ALLEGORICAL INTERPRETATION That all this suits the person of the blessed man set in the midst of tribulation, there can be no doubt; but, since the words of the historical account are plain, they do not require explaining after the letter, therefore they have to be traced out in their mystical senses. Thus he says, He hath stripped me of my glory. For the glory of each individual is his righteousness. Now just as a garment protects from the cold, so does righteousness defend from death; hence righteousness is not improperly likened to a garment, where it is said by the Prophet; Let Thy priests be clothed with righteousness. But seeing that in the season of her tribulation this garment of righteousness, which covers her in the sight of God, is lost to Holy Church in her members that go weakly, let it be rightly said; He hath stripped me of my glory, i.e. righteousness has been taken away from the weak, whereas it could never possibly have been taken away from them, if it had been infixed in them from the ground of the heart, but for this reason it was possible to be taken away from them, because it was attached to them outwardly, like a garment. Wherein the question offers itself, how they could be called members of Holy Church, who were capable of losing the righteousness which they seemed to maintain. But it is necessary for us to know, that very often righteousness is lost for a while by her weakly members, but when they are afterwards brought back to penitence in the acknowledgment of their fault, they attach themselves to that very righteousness which they had lost more strongly than was supposed credible. And it is yet further added thereby, and taken the crown from my head. As the head is the first part of the body, so the leading part of the interior man is the mind. Now the crown is the reward of victory, which is set from Above, in order that he that has contended should be rewarded; and so because many persons, under the pressure of adversities, do not hold out in the contest, in these Holy Church as it were 'loses a crown from her head:' for 'a crown on the head' is the reward from Above in the mind; there are a great many who whilst they are pressed with adversities, neglect to take thought of the rewards above, and cannot reach to the completion of victory; in such, then, 'the crown is taken from the head,' in that the heavenly and spiritual reward is taken away from the aim of the mind, that they should henceforth go after the externally peaceful, nor look out for the eternal rewards, which they used to have at heart. Or otherwise, 'the head' of the faithful is not inappropriately taken to mean the priests, in that they are the first part of the Lord's members; and hence it is expressed by the Prophet, that 'the head and the tail' are rooted out, in which same place both by the title of the 'head' we have the priests denoted, and by the designation of the 'tail' the reprobate prophet. Therefore 'the crown is taken from the head,' when even they abandon the heavenly rewards, who seemed to have the lead in this body of the Church; and it generally happens that, when the leaders fall, the army, that followed, is the wider worsted.

He says that his crown was taken away from him, that is, he also was a king before, or … "He tore me off," he says, "and like a tree he cut away all my hopes from the roots. Like an enemy who is inflamed with anger, he destroyed all my prosperity." Job correctly says "like an enemy," because God does not inflict torments with an angry or hostile mind. He says these things in order to persuade his friends and himself that his punishment exceeds the limits of human crimes. Indeed, that righteous man was suffering not because of his crimes but in order that his patience might be tested.

Then, after he has excluded the cures, he adds the adversities, beginning with the exterior goods which he lost. He places first among these the loss of honor and glory when he says, "He stripped me of my glory," because although he had previously been held in honor and reverence, now even those younger in age derided him, as the text says further on in Chapter Thirty (v.1). He places second the loss of rank when he says, "and he took the crown from my head," because before he used to sit "like a king surrounded by his army," (29:25) as a text will say further on but now "he sat in a dung heap scraping the corrupted matter with a potsherd." (2:8)

The worth of a poor upright man. Riches preserve friends. False witnesses. False friends. A king's wrath. The foolish son. The prudent wife. Slothfulness. Pity for the poor. The fear of the Lord. The spendthrift son. Obedience to parents.

He hath stripped me of my glory - I am reduced to such circumstances, that I have lost all my honor and respect.

JOB'S REPLY TO BILDAD. (Job 19:1-29) How long, &c.--retorting Bildad's words (Job 18:2). Admitting the punishment to be deserved, is it kind thus ever to be harping on this to the sufferer? And yet even this they have not yet proved.

stripped . . . crown--image from a deposed king, deprived of his robes and crown; appropriate to Job, once an emir with all but royal dignity (Lam 5:16; Psa 89:39).