Job 19:21

_HAVE PITY UPON ME, HAVE PITY UPON ME, O YE MY FRIENDS; FOR THE HAND OF GOD HATH TOUCHED ME._ When God had made him such a piteous spectacle, his friends should spare him the additional persecution of their cruel speeches....

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...

Verse Job 19:21. _HAVE PITY UPON ME_] The iteration here strongly indicates the depth of his distress, and that his spirit was worn down with the length and severity of his suffering....

HAVE PITY ON ME - A tender, pathetic cry for sympathy. “God has afflicted me, and stripped me of all my comforts, and I am left a poor, distressed, forsaken man. I make my appeal to you, my friends, and entreat you to have pity; to sympathize with me, and to sustain me by the words of consolation.” One would have supposed that these words would have gone to the heart, and that we should hear no more of their bitter reproofs. But far otherwise was the fact. THE HAND OF GOD HATH TOUCHED ME - Hath smitten me; or is heavy upon me. The meaning is, that he had been subjected to great calamities by God, and that it was right to appeal now to his friends, and to expect their sympathy and compassion. On the usual meaning of the word here rendered, “hath touched” (נגעה _nâga‛âh_ from נגע _nâga‛_ ), see the notes at...

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

HAVE PITY UPON ME, HAVE PITY UPON ME,.... Instead of calumny and censure, his case called for compassion; and the phrase is doubled, to denote the vehemence of his affliction, the ardency of his soul, the anguish of his spirits, the great distress he was in, and the earnest desire he had to have pity shown him; and in which he may be thought not only to make a request to his friends for it, but to give them a reproof for want of it: O YE MY FRIENDS; as they once showed themselves to be, and now professed they were; and since they did, pity might be reasonably expected from them; for even common humanity, and much more friendship, required it of them, that they should be pitiful and courteous, and put on bowels of mercy and kindness, and commiserate his sad estate, and give him all the succour, relief, and comfort they could, see Job 6:14; for the hand of God has to

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)....

HAVE PITY, &C. Figure of speech _Ecphonesis._ App-6. THE HAND. Figure of speech _Anthropopatheia._ App-6. TOUCHED. stricken. Figure of speech _Tapeinosis._ App-6....