Job 19King James Version
Job's great answer. How long will you vex my soul and break me in pieces with words? My bone cleaveth to my skin and to my flesh. And then the astonishing turn: 'For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.' The verse Handel set to music in Messiah.
Job responds to Bildad in what is arguably the most important chapter in the book. He says God has stripped him of his glory and removed his hope. Everyone has turned against him: brothers, acquaintances, servants, his wife, even young children. He is alone. Then the speech pivots to one of the most astonishing declarations in the Bible: he knows his redeemer lives, and he will see God with his own eyes.
From the bottom of total isolation, Job makes his greatest confession: beyond death, beyond the grave, he will see God vindicated and whole.
25: "For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth." The most famous verse in Job. A declaration of faith in vindication after death, made by a man in the middle of complete earthly collapse.
The ancient Near Eastern goel was a legal and social institution: if a man was sold into slavery, his goel could buy him back; if a man was murdered, his goel was the avenger. Job is transposing this human institution into the cosmic realm. He is saying there is a kinsman-advocate at the level of eternity, and that person will show up.
Job speaks. He describes the abandonment of every human relationship: siblings, kinsmen, house servants, wife, little children, intimate friends. The isolation is total. Then, having established that no human can help him, he turns to his redeemer.
The Hebrew word goel, translated redeemer, is the kinsman-redeemer: the family member who has the right and obligation to avenge, redeem, or vindicate a relative. Job is saying someone in that role exists for him, that this vindicator lives, and that even after his skin is destroyed he will see God with his own eyes. This is the book's peak of hope.
This chapter is the one for when everyone has left and you are completely alone in your suffering. Job does not find a person to hold him. He finds something beyond persons. The confession costs him nothing, because he has already lost everything.
1Then Job answered and said,
2How long will ye vex my soul, and break me in pieces with words?
3These ten times have ye reproached me: ye are not ashamed that ye make yourselves strange to me.
4And be it indeed that I have erred, mine error remaineth with myself.
5If indeed ye will magnify yourselves against me, and plead against me my reproach:
6Know now that God hath overthrown me, and hath compassed me with his net.
7Behold, I cry out of wrong, but I am not heard: I cry aloud, but there is no judgment.
8He hath fenced up my way that I cannot pass, and he hath set darkness in my paths.
9He hath stripped me of my glory, and taken the crown from my head.
10He hath destroyed me on every side, and I am gone: and mine hope hath he removed like a tree.
11He hath also kindled his wrath against me, and he counteth me unto him as one of his enemies.
12His troops come together, and raise up their way against me, and encamp round about my tabernacle.
13He hath put my brethren far from me, and mine acquaintance are verily estranged from me.
14My kinsfolk have failed, and my familiar friends have forgotten me.
15They that dwell in mine house, and my maids, count me for a stranger: I am an alien in their sight.
16I called my servant, and he gave me no answer; I intreated him with my mouth.
17My breath is strange to my wife, though I intreated for the children's sake of mine own body.
18Yea, young children despised me; I arose, and they spake against me.
19All my inward friends abhorred me: and they whom I loved are turned against me.
20My bone cleaveth to my skin and to my flesh, and I am escaped with the skin of my teeth.
21Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O ye my friends; for the hand of God hath touched me.
22Why do ye persecute me as God, and are not satisfied with my flesh?
23Oh that my words were now written! oh that they were printed in a book!
24That they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever!
25For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth:
26And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God:
27Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me.
28But ye should say, Why persecute we him, seeing the root of the matter is found in me?
29Be ye afraid of the sword: for wrath bringeth the punishments of the sword, that ye may know there is a judgment.