“How long will you torment me and crush me with words?” (Job 19:2).
“Even if it is true that I have sinned, my mistake concerns only me” (Job 19:4).
Job continues to maintain his innocence.
“If you really want to….use my disgrace as evidence against me, then understand that it is God who has wrong me and caught me in His net” (Job 19:5-6).
Yikes! This is a double whammy. Clearly Job’s friends are using his suffering as proof that God is against Him. But God is accusing God here of wrong-doing. Job has something coming as well. He may have lived a very upright life, but he has yet to understand the holiness and righteousness of God.
Job continues his lament.
“He has removed my brothers from me…” (Job 19:13).
“My relatives stop coming by, and my close friends have forgotten me” (Job 19:14)
“My breath is offensive to my wife and my own family finds me repulsive” (Job 19:17)
“Even young boys scorn me” (Job 19:18)
“All of my best friends despise me and those I love have turned against me” (Job 19:19)
And then here is the cry of his heart to his friends:
“Have mercy on me, my friends, have mercy, for God’s hand has struck me” (Job 19:21).
His friends are distressed that they can’t convince him that this trouble is brought out because he has been wicked. Job tells them to basically be concerned for their souls as they themselves will have to be ready to face judgment.
“If you say, “How will we pursue him, since the root of the problem lies with him? then be afraid of the sword, because wrath brings punishment by the sword, so that you may know there is a judgment” (Job 19:28-29).
This whole chapter in his response to Bildad is a cry for mercy from Job’s friends. A cry that they will deal with their own sin and give him comfort instead of accusation in his suffering.
His suffering which he believes is from the hand of God has been great.
“…understand that it is God who has wrong me and caught me in His net” (Job 19:6).
“for God’s hand has struck me. Why do you persecute me as God does?” (Job 19:22).
Job still maintains his righteousness which is both commendable in that he is has a clean conscience that he has done all that he could, and a bit self-righteous.
Job doesn’t fully understand the holiness of God and the unholiness of even the best of mankind. As Isaiah will later say
“all our deeds of righteousness are like filthy rags” (Is 64:6).
It’s a lesson Job will soon learn.
