Albert Barnes Commentary Job 19

How long will ye vex my soul? - Perhaps intending to reply to the taunting speech of Bildad (Job 18:2). “He” had asked, “how long it would be before Job would make an end of empty talk?” “Job” asks, in reply, “how long” they would torture and afflict his soul, or whether there was any hope that this would ever come to an end!

And break me in pieces - Crush me, or bruise me—like breaking anything in a mortar, or breaking rocks by repeated blows of the hammer. “Noyes.” He says they had crushed him, as if by repeated blows.

These ten times — This means many times. The word “ten” is used as we often say, “ten a dozen” or “twenty,” to denote many. See Genesis 31:7: And your father has changed my wages ten times. Also, Leviticus 26:26: and when I have broken your staff of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven; compare Numbers 14:22; Nehemiah 4:6.

You are not ashamed that you make yourselves strange to me — The margin reads, “harden yourselves strange to me,” or “harden yourselves against me.” Gesenius, and after him Noyes, renders this, “Shameless you stun me.” Wemyss asks, “Are you not ashamed to treat me thus cruelly?”

The word used here (הכר hâkar) occurs nowhere else, and therefore it is difficult to determine its meaning. The Vulgate renders it, “oppressing me.” The Septuagint translates it, “and you are not ashamed to press upon me” — ἐπίκεισθέ μοι epikeisthe moi.

Schultens has conducted an extended examination of its meaning and suggests that the primary idea is that of being “stiff” or “rigid.” He states that the word in Arabic means to be “stupid with wonder.” He supposes it is applied to those who are “stiff or rigid” with stupor, and then to those who have a stony heart and an iron forehead—and who can look on suffering without feeling or compassion. This sense aligns well with the context here.

Gesenius, however, supposes that the primary idea is that of beating or pounding, and consequently, of stunning by repeated blows. In either case, the sense would be substantially the same—that of “stunning.” The idea conveyed by our translators of making themselves “strange” was derived from the supposition that the word might be formed from נכר nâkar—to be strange, foreign; to estrange, alienate, etc. For a more full examination of the word, the reader may consult Schultens or Rosenmuller on this passage.

And be it indeed that I have erred - Admitting that I have erred, it is my own concern. You have a right to reproach and revile me in this manner.

Mine error abideth with myself - I must abide the consequences of the error. The design of this seems to be to reprove what he regarded as an improper and meddlesome interference with his concerns. Or it may be an expression of a willingness to bear all the consequences himself. He was willing to meet all the fair results of his own conduct.

If, indeed, you will magnify yourselves against me - This is connected with the next verse. The sense is, “all these calamities came from God. He has brought them upon me in a sudden and mysterious manner. In these circumstances you ought to have pity upon me (Job 19:21). Instead of magnifying yourselves against me, setting yourselves up as censors and judges, overwhelming me with reproaches and filling my mind with pain and anguish, you ought to show to me the sympathy of a friend.” The phrase, “magnify yourselves,” refers to the fact that they had assumed a tone of superiority and an authoritative manner, instead of showing the compassion due to a friend in affliction.

And plead against me my reproach - My calamities as a cause of reproach. You urge them as a proof of the displeasure of God, and you join in reproaching me as a hypocrite. Instead of this, you should have shown compassion to me as a man whom God had greatly afflicted.

Know now that God - Understand the situation; and so that they could, he goes into an extended description of the calamities which God had brought upon him. He wished them to be fully informed of all that he had suffered by God's hand.

hath overthrown me - The word used here (עות ‛ âvath) means to bend, to make crooked or curved; then to distort, pervert; then to overturn, to destroy (Isaiah 24:1; Lamentations 3:9). The meaning here is that he had been in a state of prosperity, but that God had completely reversed everything.

and hath compassed me with his net - Has sprung his net upon me as a hunter does, and I am caught. Perhaps there may be an allusion here to what Bildad said in Job 18:8 and following, that the wicked would be taken in his own snares. Instead of that, Job says that God had sprung the snare upon him—for reasons which he could not understand, but in a manner that should move the compassion of his friends.