Job 19:23-24

Oh that my words were now written!

Job longing for a permanent memorial

Job’s wish has been gratified; his memorial has found inscription on a tablet compared with which the granite rock is rubbish, and lead a withered leaf.

It has found entry in the “Word of God, which liveth and endureth forever.” No temple of fame like this. This dying desire of Job to find memorial is much too natural to be at all strange. Nothing is more common in death scenes than to find the departing one rally his failing strength, and eagerly utilise his last few breaths to give final charges that shall be religiously honoured, and with painfully wistful looks try to speak after vocal power is gone. Many and impressive are the lessons that here crowd into the mind.

1. Let us say what we have to say, and do what we have to do, in time, that during life we may so live that in the hour of death we may have only to die.

2. Let us be careful to say and do nothing in life which we shall long in death--alas! unavailingly--to unsay or undo.

3. Let us, above all, speak for God and the Gospel; for that, be assured, if we are conscious and in our right mind, will be what at death we shall be most eager to do, that every word might photograph itself on the everlasting rock, and speak in its living influence long years after we are dead. (J. Guthrie, D. D.)

Job’s wish for a permanent record

As one accustomed to the use of wealth Job speaks. He thinks first of a parchment in which his story and his claim may be carefully written and preserved. But he sees at once how perishable that would be, and asses to a form of memorial such as great men employed. He imagines a cliff in the desert with a monumental inscription bearing that once he the Emeer of Uz, lived and suffered, was thrown from prosperity, was accursed by men, was worn by disease, but died maintaining that all this befell him unjustly, that he had done no wrong to God or man. It would stand there in the way of the caravans of Lema for succeeding generations to read. Kings represent on rocks their wars and triumphs. As one of royal dignity Job would use the same means of continuing his protest and his name. (R. A. Watson, D. D.)

The Redeemer

The secular view is that Job is here expressing a confident hope of recovery from his leprosy, and of justification in the sight of men. The spiritual view is that Job is looking beyond death, and is expressing his belief either in the future life of the soul, or in the resurrection of the body. It is necessary to say a few words, first on the external evidence for the meaning of the passage, and then on the internal. Both seem to me to point decisively to its spiritual interpretation.

I. The external evidence is in its favour.

1. Job did not expect recovery at all, much less was he confident of it as a certain thing which could not fail to happen. What his expectation of life was we see from such words as these (Job 17:1): “My breath is corrupt, my days are extinct, the graves are ready for me”; or these (Job 17:11; Job 17:15): “My days are past, my purposes are broken off, even the thoughts of my heart,.. .Where is now my hope? as for my hope, who shall see it?” Even if he wavered between hope and fear, he could not use such language as implies the utmost certainty.

2. The Septuagint translation (made by Jews who must, be supposed capable of understanding the Hebrew words, and made by them long before Jesus Christ brought immortality to light, and taught the doctrine of the resurrection from the dead) gives the spiritual sense of the passage: “He shall raise up my body, after these present things have been destroyed.”

3. The Jewish Targum on the passage (which must be free from all Christian bias) is also wholly in favour of the spiritual sense. I give its rendering by a great Hebrew scholar (Delitzsch, to which one of our most competent British Hebraists tells me he has nothing to add): “I know that my Redeemer liveth, and hereafter His redemption will arise (become a reality) over the dust (into which I shall be dissolved); and after my skin is again made whole, this will happen, and from my flesh I shall again behold God.”

II. The internal evidence is even more strongly in favour of the spiritual sense.

1. Observe the great solemnity with which the declaration is introduced (verse 23), and how inconsistent this is with the idea that Job refers to recovery from his leprosy, and desires to inscribe that fact on the rock for the teaching of posterity.

2. Mark next the perfect assurance of the writer, which is fully in accord with the strong conviction of spiritual faith, but is quite out of place with regard to a secular expectation.

3. The sublime and spiritual keynote of the whole passage seems thoroughly out of keeping with any feeling which ends in mere temporal blessing.

4. To “see God,” which is the burden of his confidence, is surely something more and deeper than the recovery of health. Not to dwell longer then on questions of interpretation, and avoiding minute verbal criticism, I give in substance the probable meaning of the passage, and pass on to consider the spiritual teaching which it implies in anticipation of the Gospel. It is to be regarded as a rock inscription. I know that my Goal liveth ever, and that He, as survivor, shall stand over my dust, and after this skin of mine is destroyed, yet from my flesh I shall see God; whom I shall see again; mine eyes shall see Him, and not another for me; for this also my reins do long.

I. Who and what is the Redeemer?

1. He is the Goel. The word has two meanings, and it has been disputed which is the correct one here. It means the avenger of blood, and it means the kinsman. Those who have adopted the secular view of the passage have contended that it must bear the former meaning only. But they have surely forgotten that the office of the avenger of blood could not be executed till after the death of the person to be avenged; and that this is one of the indications that not recovery, but something after death is looked forward to by Job. But if we ask what is the root-meaning, the original idea in the Goel, it surely is not difficult to determine. Did a man become kinsman to the murdered one because he was the avenger of his blood? Or did he not become the avenger because he was already the kinsman, and was therefore called on to avenge him? The latter is the truth; and hence kindred is the first idea of the Goel: “bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh.” Avenger is the next thought involved in the word: one seeking reparation for our death, and therefore protecting our life by the thought that his sword is behind it. And a third idea is that of deliverance and redemption, as of family property, by one “whose right is to redeem.” Job then is looking forward to such a kinsman--a kinsman in the largest sense, who, being the ideal, shall fulfil all the meanings of the institution; who shall be of the same blood; who shall protect and avenge that blood, after death, of which Job is to taste; and who shall also redeem for him the lost inheritance. Here, too, the dim finger of want and of hope points onward to Him who said of every doer of the will of God: “The same is My brother and sister”; our “kinsman, according to the flesh.”

2. The Redeemer or Goal is an everliving person. So the Septuagint aptly, renders the words, “My Redeemer liveth.” Job is thinking of and expecting his own death; but he has full confidence that after that there shall arise his kinsman and Redeemer. Yet is it certain that He too may not pass away through death? The reply of Job’s soul is, No; He cannot pass, for He lives forever. After my flesh is dust; after, perhaps, all flesh is dust, yet He, the survivor, shall stand over the earth. This is a kinsman “whose years are throughout (and beyond) all generations”!

3. Still further and more remarkably Job’s kinsman is Divine. It is impossible to resist the conclusion that He who is the redeeming kinsman of the 25th verse is also the God of the 26th. And the whole interest of the passage centres in this, that Job’s kinsman-Redeemer is a Divine person, who shall interpose on Job’s behalf hereafter, by revealing Himself after death!

II. What is the expected Redeemer to do? (J. E. Coming, D. D.)

Job finding comfort for himself

The words and efforts of Job’s comforters were not in vain. Sometimes in bodily inflammations a lenitive is the best treatment, and sometimes a counter-irritant. It is not very different in inflammations of the soul. In Job’s case, perhaps, mere condolence would have completed his despair. But when they accuse him of hypocrisy of the basest kind,--when they arraign him as being rejected of God, and lying under the special curse of the Almighty,--then his manhood gathers strength in endeavour to crush the great lie.

1. Job’s first step towards recovery was when he found his voice,--though only to curse the day of his birth. The friends who sat silently beside him did this for him. They revived him from the stupor of his grief. Sometimes a sense of pain, and an exhibition of impatience, is a sign of a favourable turn in serious disease; so is it in diseases of the soul. “She must weep, or she will die,” sings the poet of the widow, when “home they brought her warrior dead.” And so the stupor of despair is always one of the gravest signs. It is true that a terrific lamentation breaks forth from him (chap. 3.), unexampled in literature,--a model on which again and again our great dramatist has formed his representations of blank despair. Solomon’s despair in the Book of Ecclesiastes is the result of the cynical surfeit of luxury, which finds nothing in life sufficiently important for its regard. But this is the despair of agony and grief, natural and seemingly incurable. Still it marks a slight advance. It is a feeble symptom of returning vigour. Hearts break with silent, not with uttered, grief. Speech is a sort of safety valve.

2. Job’s second step towards comfort was praying for death (chaps. 6 and 7; specially Job 6:8). Some, ignorant of human nature, fancy comfort would be reached by a great leap; and had they from imagination drawn a picture of a Job finding consolation, their story would have consisted of a record of his despair, and of the visit of some gracious prophet declaring God’s fatherhood. Such is not the usual experience of men. “First the blade; then the ear; then the full corn in the ear”; so grace always grows. Accordingly, the next step towards comfort is, though a strange, a great one. To lament a sorrow in the ears of men was some relief, but it marks an advance of the grandest kind when the soul lifts it to the ears of God. Job will not admit the accusation of Eliphaz, but he will act on the suggestion to “seek unto God and commit his cause to Him.” He is strengthened by the general testimony of Eliphaz to the justice and mercy of God, while repelling his insinuation that God is punishing his crimes. And so poor Job raises his eye again to his God. It is not a proper prayer, it is much too despairing; it has but little faith, and it involves an accusation against the mercy of God’s providence. Blessed be His name, God lets us approach Him thus. He casts out none that come unto Him, even though they come with the presumptuous murmurings of an “elder brother,” or with the despairing agony of Job. Whatever you have to say, say it to Him. It is not the proper, but the sincere prayer God wants. And when a Job comes to Him, in his desolation asking only to die, the great Father looks through all the faults of woe and weariness, to pity only the great anguish of the soul. It is not to be overlooked that before the prayer ends, he can address God by one of His noblest names: “O Thou Preserver of men” (Job 7:20). Is it the first Bible name of God?

3. As a further step, Job longs for clearing of his character. At first he doubtless cared but little for this. If his character was crushed beneath the judgment of God, it was just one more victim; and in a world of such disorder--where only disappointment reigned--it would have been something beneath his care whether all his fellow men frowned or smiled upon him. But with returning help and grace he wants something more,--that the approval of God might rest on him (Job 9:32; Job 8:2). This longing for a settlement with God, to know why and wherefore he is afflicted, does it not mark some growing force within him? Only from Him, with whom they wrestled, did either Job or Jacob gather the strength by which they overcame. When Zophar assails him, with still more bitter consolation than the rest, he seems to stimulate Job’s faith still more. His faith grows strong enough to declare “though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.” “I have ordered my cause; I know that I shall be justified.” “He also shall be my salvation: for an hypocrite shall not stand before Him” (Job 13:15; Job 13:18; Job 13:16). What a hope was even then reached that God would yet justify him--vindicating his character, owning the integrity of his purpose and the sincerity of his religion. The next stage we notice is--

4. We see, again, that Job prays for some blessedness in the other world. There is a wonderful distance between the prayer of Job 6:9 --“O that it would please God to destroy me”; and the prayer in Job 14:13 --“O that Thou wouldest hide me in the grave, that Thou wouldest keep me secret, until Thy wrath be past, that Thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember me!” The other world emereges into light. Death is not an end of this life merely; it is a gateway to another state of being--a place where God can remember a man, where He can “call” and be “answered,” where He can show the “desire,” the favour He has to the work of His hands. It is not yet the exultant hope he reaches, but still a hope exceeding precious. The soul feels itself strangely superior to disease and decay, and begins to speculate on what it will do when it “shuffles off this mortal coil.” A prophet-poet of the nineteenth century has sung--

“Thou wilt not leave us in the dust,

Thou madest man he knows not why;
He thinks he was not made to die:

And Thou hast made him--Thou art just,”

Three thousand years ago, through the same sort of baptism of grief, the patriarch was led to the same conclusions. The Sheol, the place of the dead which had seemed so void of life and being, became to his mind a sphere of Divine activities--“O that Thou wouldest hide me in the grave, that Thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember me.” “Thou shalt call and I will answer Thee.” It is not evangelical divines alone that construe this as a dream of finding fellowship with God in the calm of an untroubled afterlife. Even M. Renan, in his translation, takes the same view. Someone says: “The hope of eternal life is a flower growing on the edge of the abyss.” Job found it there, and it was worth all his anguish to reach it. It is not yet a conviction. Doubt breaks in with the question--“If a man die, can he live again?” And the doubt is left there, faithfully registered. But felt and faced as the doubt is, the great dream reasserts itself and fastens on his imagination. So, through cloud and sunshine, over hilltops of vision, and through low valleys whose views are narrow, the soul goes on. At the outset death seemed desirable only because it seemed an absolute end. Now the great may-be that is the beginning of a better life, where God’s desire towards the work of His hands will be manifested, dawns on him. It will be lost--it will come back to him--it will seem too good news to be true. He has caught now a glimpse of it. In the next valley he will lose it, but it will never fade away again. Some people forget that each has to find his own creed. The creed cannot be manufactured. Others may give you truth; you must find the power of believing it. So the faiths of men are propagated by living seeds of truth falling on living hearts. But if there is something deeply suggestive in the beginning of his great dream, the hope does not stop there, but grows into assured confidence, for Job reaches an assured hope of immortality. You notice a strange increase of calmness in the mind of Job after Eliphaz and Bildad have spoken. Just in the degree in which his friends become angry he becomes calm. The anger even dies out of his replies, and instead of resenting their upbraiding he tenderly pleads for their sympathy. This calmness grew from his praying; his hoping that he still might reason out his cause with God, and that God would even take his part against Himself. He found a wonderful increase of it in the new thought that he might in the land of the dead walk with God. And thus subsiding into a simple faith, at last the great comfort reaches him of a sure and certain hope--of a blessed immortality. Few eyes that have not been washed with tears can look steadfastly into the world to come. Not as the world giveth does God give peace, but in a different way altogether,--by storm and grief and loss and calamity of direst kind. So He bringeth them to their desired haven. The prophets have been all men of sorrows. Sometimes a little unwisdom has been shown in pressing a dubious translation, and gathering from Job’s words a testimony to the resurrection of the body. Whether you should translate his words, “In my flesh I shall see God”; or, “apart from my flesh I shall see God,” is, indeed, quite immaterial. We shall probably be safest in taking Job’s words in their most general meaning, as details of future conditions were hardly to be expected. But taking his words in the lower sense which all interpreters admit they must carry; taking, say, the interpretation of M. Renan himself, what a wonderful hope they express.

1. That God will be his Deliverer, Protector of person and of character, Guardian and Deliverer in the world unseen.

2. That after death and divested of his body, he yet will find himself the subject of richest mercies.

3. His personal identity will be indestructibly maintained. He will not subside into the general life, but forever be a separate soul; he will see God for himself; his eyes shall behold his very self, unchanged, unite another.

4. And in this relieved and rescued, but unchanged personality, he will have the highest of all bliss--he will see God. And so Job found his dunghill become a land of Beulah--delectable mountains from which the city of God was seen. Faults of murmuring and impeachment of God’s dignity are still to be corrected, and his comfort is to be perfected by a restoration of earthly comforts.

Leaving them, we only note--

1. God’s Spirit is never idle where His providence is at work.

2. We are not following cunningly devised fables. In every age the best have been the surest of an immortality of bliss, and such faith is evidence. See we reach that heaven. (R. Glover.)