Job 19:8 - Meaning and Application

Bildad had twisted Job’s complaints in a very unfair way, making them sound like the description of a wicked man’s misery. Job repeats those complaints here to win their pity and stir up any kindness left in them. He first speaks of the signs of God’s displeasure that, in his mind, made all his pain even heavier. His words are full of sorrow: “He has kindled his wrath against me” (Job 19:11).

What is the fire of hell, after all, but God’s wrath? A hardened conscience may not fear that wrath now, but it will feel it later. A sensitive conscience fears it now, but will not suffer it later. Job thought God was treating him like an enemy, even though God loved him and counted him his faithful friend. That is a common mistake, and a serious one, thinking that if God afflicts someone, God must hate him. In truth, “the Lord disciplines the one he loves” and rebukes him as a son.

Wherever Job looked, he thought he saw proof that God was against him. When he looked back at his former days of ease, he saw God ending them. “He has stripped me of my glory,” he says, meaning his wealth, honor, power, children, and every advantage he had for doing good (Job 19:9). His children had been his glory, and now they were gone. Everything that once crowned his head had been taken away, and all his honor lay in the dust.

This shows how empty worldly glory is. It can be taken from us very quickly, and we must recognize God’s hand in it when it happens. We should also accept that God has a wise purpose in taking it away. Job then looked at his present troubles and saw God as the one who had sent them against him. They were, as it were, God’s troops, marching under his command and surrounding him (Job 19:12). What hurt him most was not just that troubles came in armies, but that they seemed to be God’s armies, as if God himself were fighting against him and meant to destroy him.

God’s troops had camped around his tent, like soldiers laying siege to a city and cutting off all supplies. Job felt surrounded on every side. Yet there had been a time when God’s host had encamped around him for protection. Now the same divine power, as Job saw it, pressed him down in terror (Job 19:10).

When Job looked ahead for relief, he saw no way forward. “He has fenced up my way, so that I cannot pass” (Job 19:8). He felt trapped, unable to help himself or ease his own suffering. If he tried to move toward deliverance, every path was blocked. Even the thought of future relief was hidden from him, because God had set darkness in his road, and no one could tell him how long it would last (Psalm 74:9). So he concludes that he is ruined for this world, and that his hope has been taken away like a tree cut down and uprooted (Job 19:10).

Hope in this life does not last. But the hope of godly people, when it is cut off from this world, is only moved, like a tree transplanted from a nursery to the Lord’s garden. We have no reason to complain if God moves our hope from sand to rock, from temporary things to eternal things.

Job next complains about the coldness of his relatives and old friends. He still sees God’s hand in it, saying that God has put his brothers far from him (Job 19:13). By this he means that God had allowed these troubles, which frightened them away and kept them from coming near his sores. God was not the author of their sin, for Satan is the one who turns people against their suffering friends. But God ordered even this part of Job’s trial. We should remember God’s hand not only in injuries from enemies, like David did when Shimei cursed him, but also in the neglect and unkindness we receive from friends. That helps us bear it more patiently.

Still, this does not excuse Job’s relatives and friends from their terrible ingratitude and injustice. Job had every reason to complain. He speaks first of his kindred and acquaintances, the neighbors and old companions who should have shown concern for him, visited him, asked after him, and helped in every way they could. Instead, they stayed away as though he were a stranger they had never known (Job 19:13). His relatives, who had claimed him in his success, now failed him. His familiar friends, whom he had remembered, forgot both his kindness to them and his suffering now. They had heard of his trouble and meant to visit, but they forgot him, so little were they moved by his pain.

Worse still, his closest friends, the men of his confidence, turned from him too. These were the people he had once trusted deeply. They not only forgot him, but even hated the sight of him. They kept as far away as they could because he was poor and could no longer host them as before, and because his sores made him an unpleasant sight. Those he had loved, and who should have loved him in return, did more than avoid him. They acted against him and tried to make him seem offensive, as if that would excuse their coldness toward him (Job 19:19). Human friendship is very uncertain. But if God is our friend, he will not fail us in our need. No one who claims to be humane or Christian should ever treat friends the way Job’s friends treated him. Hard times show what friendship is really worth.

Job also complains about his household and family. Sometimes, against all expectation, there is a friend who stays closer than a brother. But a head of a household normally expects care from those in his own home, even when weakness has made him less respected by others. Poor Job was mistreated by his own household, and some of his worst enemies were people from his own house. He does not mention his children, because they were all dead. We can imagine that the unkindness of the relatives who remained made him grieve even more for the children he had lost. He may have thought, “If they were still alive, I would have comfort in them.” As for those still around him, his own servants treated him with contempt.

His maids did not care for him in his illness. They treated him like a stranger and an outsider, as Job 19:15 says. His other servants paid no attention to him either. If he called them, they would not come. If he asked them a question, they would not even answer, Job 19:16.

Job had been a good master to them. He did not look down on them when they had a complaint, as he says in Job 31:13. Yet they were rude to him now, and they ignored his own complaint. We should not be surprised if we are treated badly by people we have tried to do good to. Job was sick, but he was not harsh with his servants. He did not act proud or bossy, as many people would. Instead, he spoke to them gently, even though he had the right to command them. Still, they would not be polite, kind, or fair to him.

People who are sick and hurting often take small slights very hard. They can become very sensitive to neglect. When Job was in such deep trouble, even his servants’ lack of care hurt him.

And if all the rest forsook him, one would expect his own wife to be tender toward him. Instead, because he would not curse God and die, as she had urged him, even his breath was strange to her too. She did not want to come near him or pay attention to what he said, Job 19:17. He spoke to her, not with a husband’s harsh authority, but with a husband’s tenderness. He did not order her about. He appealed to her by the marriage love they shared, the love shown in the children they had together, but she still ignored him.

Some understand the words to mean, “Though I lamented for the children,” that is, for the death of the children from his own body, a grief she shared with him. In this way, it looked as though the devil had spared her, not to comfort Job, but to torment him. From her first words, “Curse God and die,” it was plain that she had little true religion. What good and kind help can be expected from those who do not fear God and are not ruled by conscience?

Even the little children born in his house, the children of his servants, despised him and spoke against him, Job 19:18. Though he rose up in courtesy to speak kindly to them, or in authority to correct them, they made it clear that they neither feared him nor loved him.

Job then complains of how his body was wasting away. All its strength and beauty were gone. If the people around him had treated him with honor, he might have found some comfort in himself even while sick. But he could take as little pleasure in himself as others took in him, Job 19:20. His bones clung to his skin. He had become only skin and bones. His skin was nearly gone too. Nothing much was left except the skin of his teeth, meaning his gums and perhaps his lips, while the rest of his skin had been ruined by his painful sores.

This should remind us how little reason we have to pamper the body. After all our care, disease can still waste it away, since the seeds of sickness are already within it.

Job then asks his friends for compassion, and he rightly blames their harshness. From the way he described his miserable condition, it was easy to see that they ought to pity him, Job 19:21. He asks for mercy in the most moving words: “Have pity on me, my friends.” If they would do nothing else for him, they should at least feel sorrow for him and show concern. He gives the reason plainly: “The hand of God has touched me.” His suffering was severe because he had fallen into the hands of the living God, and his spirit felt the weight of God’s anger. This, of all troubles, is one of the hardest to bear.

Friends should pity one another in trouble, not shut their hearts against compassion.

Job also says that, even if they would not ease his pain with pity, they should not make it worse with attacks and accusations, Job 19:22. “Why do you persecute me as God does? His rebukes are enough for one man to bear. You do not need to add your bitterness to the cup of suffering he has given me. It is bitter enough already. God has sovereign power over me and may do what he pleases. But do you think you may act that way too?”

We should aim to be like the Most Holy and the Most Merciful One, but not claim the place of the Most High and Most Mighty. God does not have to explain his ways to us, but we must answer for our own actions. If they took pleasure in his suffering, let them be satisfied with his ruined body. They should not go further and wound his spirit or damage his good name. Great tenderness is due to people in affliction, especially to those who are troubled in mind.