Job does not yet respond directly to Bildad’s brief for divine justice; he will counter his contentions in chapter 21. Here, Job expresses exasperation over his companions’ harangues. They seem not to understand, as Job does, that the deity has severely wronged him. Not only does the deity seem to ignore Job’s cries for justice, but he metaphorically assaults Job with a military machine. By marking Job with the stigma of God’s enemy he isolates Job from family and friends. But Job conceives of two ways of vindicating himself: to make a permanent record of his claims and to present them in person before the deity.
[19:1] Up spoke Job and he said:
[2–3] How long will you make me anguished,
Oppressing me with words!
Ten times1 you try to refute me,2
You have no shame as you demean me.3
[4] For even if I’ve been at fault,
The fault resides within me.
[5–6] But if you keep speaking to me arrogantly,4
Reproaching me on account of my disgrace,
Know at least it’s Eloah who’s abused me,
Surrounding me with his siege-works.5
[7] Though I scream “I’ve been wronged!”6 I receive no response;
(Though) I make an outcry, there is no justice.
[8] He has fenced in my way so I cannot pass through;7
He has laid darkness over my footpaths.8
[9] He has stripped me of my (clothes of) honor,9
Removed the crown from my head.10
[10] He has broken me down11 and I’m going (to die).12
He has uprooted my hope like a tree.13
[11–12] He has inflamed his anger against me,
And reckoned me one of his enemies.14
His troops come at me at once,
They clear an attack-road against me,
And they camp surrounding my tent.
[13–14] My relatives15 he’s kept distant from me,
And my friends16 have withdrawn17 from me.
My close ones have stopped (coming near),
And my familiar ones have rejected me.18
[15–16] Men of my household19 and women-who-serve-me
Imagine me a stranger20—
In their eyes I am a foreigner.
I call to my man-servant but he does not respond—
Though I beg-him-for-mercy with my very-own mouth!
[17] My breath is foul21 to my wife,
And my odor22 to my siblings.23
[18] Even young-hooligans24 detest me;
When I arise (to speak), they speak against me.
[19] All members of my circle abhor me;
Those I befriended have turned on me.
[20] My bone sticks to my skin and my flesh,25
I’m cemented26 at the skin of my teeth.
[21] Have compassion, compassion, you my friends!
For the hand of Eloah has afflicted me.27
[22] Why do you like El persecute me?
Why can’t you get your fill of my flesh?28
[23–24] If only my words could be written!
If only be engraved in a record!29
With a stylus of iron or lead,
Let them be hewn in rock as a witness!30
[25] For I know that my redeemer31 lives;
The respondent32 will testify33 on earth.34
[26–27] From behind my skin I look out,35
While in the flesh I’ll see Eloah.
Something I myself will view—
What my eyes, not a stranger’s, will see.
My innards wear away within my breast.36
[28–29] If you are thinking,37 “for what shall we persecute him,
What root cause38 can we find in him?”39
You had better fear the sword—
For rage is a crime of the sword40–
You had better beware41 of demons!42
1. Many times; compare Numbers 14:22.
2. Compare Job 11:3.
3. For “demean,” compare Arabic hqr (so already M. Kimhi).
4. The verb higdil “to do greatly” is here an ellipsis of “to do greatly with the mouth”; compare Ezekiel 35:13.
5. Compare Job 16:13–14 above; and verses 11–12 below.
6. Compare Jeremiah 20:8 and Lamentations 3:8.
7. Compare Hosea 2:8 and especially Lamentations 3:7, 9. Job ironically inverts the sense of God’s hedging Job about as a figure of protection (1:10).
8. Contrast Job 22:28.
9. Compare for example Ezekiel 16:39.
10. Compare for example Jeremiah 13:18.
11. Like a house; compare for example Psalm 52:7. Job may be alluding to the destruction of his estate and the house in which his children were killed in particular (1:19).
12. Compare for example Psalm 39:14; for the full expression, see for example Genesis 25:32.
13. For the sentiment, compare Job 17:15. Job ironically twists the image in 14:7–9.
14. Compare 13:24; but there Job uses a term for “enemy” that puns on his name; here he uses a different term (tsar) that puns on the polysemous verb zur in the following four verses.
15. Literally, “my brothers.”
16. Literally, “those who know me (well).”
17. Hebrew zaru.
18. For the theme of alienating people from the sufferer, see Psalm 31:12; 38:23; 88:9, 19; and see further Job 29.
19. Literally, “(males) who dwell in my house.”
20. Hebrew zar.
21. Hebrew zara. A different verb from the better-known term for “stranger”; see for example Numbers 11:20; Psalm 78:30.
22. Read tsaḥanati (see Joel 2:20) for ḥannoti “my pleading” (?).
23. Literally, “sons/children of my womb”—the womb in which he gestated; see Job 3:10 and the comment there. See also the introduction to this volume. This verse is strongly akin to Psalm 69:9, where “my brothers” are also called “sons of my mother.” Job replaces the conventional phrase with his idiosyncratic one.
24. See Job 30:1; the same term is used of criminals in 16:11.
25. Unable to eat in his abject state, Job’s bones protrude from his emaciated body; compare Psalm 102:6.
26. Compare later Aramaic mlt. Others tend to render: “I escape by the skin of my teeth,” which doesn’t mean anything. Job claims that the skin surrounding his teeth (his palate and lower jaw) is bound together so that he cannot speak. This is a conventional complaint of the pious sufferer; compare the Babylonian “Let Me Praise the Lord of Wisdom” (in Oshima). The claim is, of course, hyperbole; Job is not actually prevented from speaking.
27. Compare 1 Samuel 6:9; Ruth 1:13. The same term rendered “affected” in 1:11, 19 and 2:5.
28. To eat someone’s flesh is an ancient Semitic idiom for defaming him; see Psalm 27:2; Daniel 3:8 (where the Aramaic phrase has a cognate in Babylonian).
29. The term “record” is seper—any written document; there may be a pun on Babylonian siparru “copper, brass”—producing a double entendre: would that my words were engraved with a brass tool, or in brass/copper. The same pun may be found in Isaiah 30:8, on which the Job verse may be drawing.
30. Reading la‘ed for la‘ad “forever.” The latter reading makes sense, but the former gives more weight to the forensic framework of Job’s arguments. Job wants to present his case, not to memorialize his words. The image of an inscription engraved on a high stone ledge may be modeled on the famous Behistun inscription of King Darius of Persia from the late sixth century BCE (compare Habel). The incised signs were filled with lead.
31. God; compare 16:19 and see below. The “redeemer” in this context is one who protects the wronged; see Proverbs 23:10–11. For the sense, see also Isaiah 50:8.
32. Literally, “the latter (second party),” the deity who is being sued by Job. The usage is explained by Proverbs 18:17: the “first” litigant begins a suit, and the next (“his colleague”) comes to cross-examine him. “Latter” (’aḥaron) here is the counterpart of the “first (litigant)” (rishon) there.
33. Literally, “will rise (to testify)”; see Deuteronomy 19:15.
34. Literally, “dust”; for “dust” in the sense of “the earth,” see for example Job 41:25.
35. This clause is one of the most perplexing in the book. Literally it reads: “And afterwards, my skin (masculine) they flayed this (feminine).” My attempt at reconstruction is based on the assumption that, on account of the parallelism of “skin” and “flesh” (for example Job 7:5; compare 10:11; 19:20), the first clause will convey something similar to the second, which is fairly clear. The awkward combination of “they flayed this” (nikkepu zo’t) is emended to nishkapti “I look out.” Hebraists should note that the Niph‘al conjugation of this verb often has an active meaning; see Judges 5:28; 2 Samuel 6:16; and Proverbs 7:6—where we find exactly the form that is restored here.
36. That is, I pine for this; compare 16:20.
37. Literally, “say (to yourselves).”
38. Literally, “root of the matter” (or legal case).
39. The received text has bi “in me” rather than bo “in him”; but only the latter reading makes sense, and it is in fact attested in several Masoretic manuscripts.
40. The passion that impels you to persecute an innocent man. The clause is unclear; but the idea that those who transgress with the sword will be chased by the sword is found for example in Leviticus 26:25. An alternate interpretation of the same words is: “For crimes by the sword are venom.”
41. Literally, “know.”
42. The word as traditionally read, shaddun, has no meaning. I read the word the way it is spelled, shedin “demons” (with the Aramaic plural so common in Job; compare Luzzatto). Both the “sword” and the “demon” are among the seven frightening calamities enumerated by Eliphaz in 5:20–22. Job would seem to be responding to Bildad (18:13–15), who foresees various demons afflicting the wicked. There is also a pun on shod “catastrophe,” which is also among the seven calamities enumerated by Eliphaz.