Albert Barnes Commentary Job 19:11

Albert Barnes Commentary

Job 19:11

1798–1870
Presbyterian
Albert Barnes
Albert Barnes

Albert Barnes Commentary

Job 19:11

1798–1870
Presbyterian
SCRIPTURE

"He hath also kindled his wrath against me, And he counteth me unto him as [one of] his adversaries." — Job 19:11 (ASV)

He hath also kindled his wrath - He is angry. Wrath in the Scriptures is usually represented as burning or inflamed - because like fire it destroys everything before it.

And he counteth me unto him as one of his enemies - He treats me as he would an enemy. The same complaint he elsewhere makes; see Job 13:24; perhaps also in Job 16:9. We are not to understand Job here as admitting that he was an enemy of God. He constantly maintained that he was not, but he was constrained to admit that God treated him as if he were his enemy, and he could not account for it.

On this ground, therefore, he now maintains that his friends ought to show him compassion, instead of trying to prove that he was an enemy of God. They ought to pity a man who was so strangely and mysteriously afflicted, instead of increasing his sorrows by endeavoring to demonstrate that he was a man of eminent wickedness.