Job 19:12

_HIS TROOPS COME TOGETHER, AND RAISE UP THEIR WAY AGAINST ME, AND ENCAMP ROUND ABOUT MY TABERNACLE._ Troops - calamities advance together like hostile troops (Job 10:17, note). RAISE UP ... WAY. An army must cast up a way of access before it, in marching against a city (Isaiah 40:3)....

8-22 How doleful are Job's complaints! What is the fire of hell but the wrath of God! Seared consciences will feel it hereafter, but do not fear it now: enlightened consciences fear it now, but shall not feel it hereafter. It is a very common mistake to think that those whom God afflicts he treats as his enemies. Every creature is that to us which God makes it to be; yet this does not excuse Job's relations and friends. How uncertain is the friendship of men! but if God be our Friend, he will not fail us in time of need. What little reason we have to indulge the body, which, after all our care, is consumed by diseases it has in itself. Job recommends himself to the compassion of his friends, and justly blames their harshness. It is very distressing to one who loves God, to be bereaved at once of outward comfort and of inward consolation; yet if this, and more, come upon a believer, it do...

HIS TROOPS - The calamities which he had sent, and which are here represented as “armies” or “soldiers” to accomplish his work. It is not probable that he refers here to the bands of the Chaldeans and the Sabeans, that had robbed him of his property, but to the calamities that had come upon him, “as if” they were bands of robbers. AND RAISE UP THEIR WAY - As and army that is about to lay siege to a city, or that is marching to attack it, casts up a way of access to it, and thus obtains every facility to take it; see Isaiah 40:3, note; Isaiah 57:14, note. AND ENCAMP ROUND ABOUT MY TABERNACLE - In the manner of an army besieging a city. Often an army is encamped in this manner for months or even

EXPOSITION JOB 19:1 Job begins his answer to Bildad's second speech by an expostulation against the unkindness of his friends, who break him in pieces, and torture him, with their reproaches (verses 1-5). He then once more, and more plainly than on any other occasion, recounts his woes. (1) His severe treatment by God (verses 6-13); (2) his harsh usage by his relatives and friends (verses 14-19): and (3) the pain caused him by his disease (verse 20); and appeals to his friends on these grounds for pity and forbearance (verses 21, 22). Next, he proceeds to make his great avowal, prefacing it with a wish for its preservation as a perpetual record (verses 23, 24); the avowal itself follows (verses 25-27); and the speech terminates with a warning to his "comforters,'' that if they continue to pe

HIS TROOPS COME TOGETHER,.... Afflictions which are many, and of which it may be said, as was at the birth of God, who had his name from the word here used, "a troop cometh": Genesis 30:11; and these sometimes come together, or follow so quick one upon another, that there is scarce any interval between them, as did Job's afflictions; and they are God's hosts, his troops, his soldiers, which are at his command; and he says to them, as the centurion did to his, to the one, Go, and he goes, and to another, Come, and it comes: AND RAISE UP THEIR WAY AGAINST ME; as an army, when it comes against a place, throws up a bank to raise their artillery upon, that they may play it to greater advantage; or make a broad causeway, for the soldiers to march abreast against it; or an high cast up way, as the word y signifies, over a ditch or dirty place in a hollow, that they may the bett

Job 19:1. _Then, Job answered and said, How long will ye vex my soul, and break me in pieces with words?_ They struck at him with their hard words, as if they were breaking stones on the roadside. We ought to be very careful what we say to those who are suffering affliction and trial, for a word, though it seems to be a very little thing, will often cut far more deeply and wound far more terribly than a razor would. So Job says, «How long will ye vex my soul, and break me in pieces with words?» Job 19:3. _These ten times have ye reproached me: ye are not ashamed that ye make yourselves strange to me._ He means that they had reproached him several times over, and hints that they ought to have been ashamed to act so strangely, so coldly, so untenderly, towards him....

CHAPTER 19 JOB'S REPLY TO BILDAD _ 1. How long will ye vex my soul? (Job 19:1)_ 2. And I am not heard! (Job 19:7) 3. Forsaken of men he pleads to be pitied (Job 19:13) 4. Faith supreme (Job 19:25) 5. The warning to his friends (Job 19:28) Job 19:1. Bildad's scathing speech did not bring Job into the dust. He acknowledges the words vexed his soul and broke him in pieces, but he does not change his viewpoint. He repudiates the guilt with which they charged

JOB 19. JOB'S ANSWER. Here the gradual progress of Job's soul towards faith reaches its climax (Job 19:25 f.). It is to be remembered that Job's problem is in reality twofold: it has a personal side, the problem of his individual relation to God, but also a more general aspect, the problem of the Divine providence. In this chapter we read the solution of the first half on the basis of a great venture of faith; the second half is really never fully solved. JOB 19:1. Job sorrowfully remonstrates with his friends. Even if he has sinned, his sin cannot hurt them (Job 19:4). But the truth is that it is God who is responsible for Job's calamity (Job 19:6)....

TABERNACLE. tent....

God's hostility to him and destructive persecution of him. In Job 19:6 the transition is already made to the account of God's hostility. The picture is sufficiently graphic. First there was the general feeling of being entangled, as a creature snared....