Job 19:2

_HOW LONG WILL YE VEX MY SOUL, AND BREAK ME IN PIECES WITH WORDS?_ How long ... - 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....

1-7 Job's friends blamed him as a wicked man, because he was so afflicted; here he describes their unkindness, showing that what they condemned was capable of excuse. Harsh language from friends, greatly adds to the weight of afflictions: yet it is best not to lay it to heart, lest we harbour resentment. Rather let us look to Him who endured the contradiction of sinners against himself, and was treated with far more cruelty than Job was, or we can be....

Verse Job 19:2. _HOW LONG WILL YE VEX MY SOUL_] Every thing that was irritating, vexatious, and opprobrious, his friends had recourse to, in order to support their own system, and overwhelm him. Not one of them seems to have been touched with a feeling of tenderness towards him, nor does a kind expression drop at any time from their lips! They were called _friends_; but this term, in reference to them, must be taken in the sense of _cold-blooded_ _acquaintances_. However, there are many in the world that go under the sacred name of _friends_, who, in times of difficulty, act a similar part. Job's friends have been, by the general consent of posterity, consigned to endless infamy. May all those who follow their steps be equally enrolled in the annals of bad fame!...

HOW LONG WILL YE VEX MY SOUL? - Perhaps designing to reply to the taunting speech of Bildad; Job 18:2. “He” had asked “how long it would be ere Job would make an end of empty talk?” “Job” asks, in reply, “how long” they would torture and afflict his soul? Or whether there was on hope that this would ever come to an end! AND BREAK ME IN PIECES - Crush me, or bruise me - like breaking any thing in a mortar, or breaking rocks by repeated blows of the hammer. “Noyes.” He says they had crushed him, as if by repeated blows....

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

HOW LONG WILL YE VEX MY SOUL,.... Which of all vexation is the worst; not only his bones were vexed, but his soul also, as David's was, Psalms 6:2. His body was vexed with boils from head to feet; but now his soul was vexed by his friends, and which denotes extreme vexation, a man's being vexed to his very heart: there are many things vexations to men, especially to good men; they are not only vexed with pains of the body, as others, and with loss of worldly substance; but even all things here below, and the highest enjoyment of them, as wealth, wisdom, honours, and pleasures, are all vanity and vexation of spirit, as they were to Solomon; but more especially truly good men are vexed with the corruptions of their hearts, which are as pricks in their eyes and thorns in their sides, and with the temptations of Satan, which are also thorns in the flesh and fiery darts, and with the conversa...

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)....

Job 19:13. Then even a more touching complaint of the alienation of men from him which God has caused. There is more than impatience expressed in the words _vex_(afflict) and "break in pieces"; the words suggest the crushing effect which the friends" insinuations of wickedness had on Job's spirit....