Matthew Henry Commentary Job 19:23-29

"Oh that my words were now written! Oh that they were inscribed in a book! That with an iron pen and lead They were graven in the rock for ever! But as for me I know that my Redeemer liveth, And at last he will stand up upon the earth: And after my skin, [even] this [body], is destroyed, Then without my flesh shall I see God; Whom I, even I, shall see, on my side, And mine eyes shall behold, and not as a stranger. My heart is consumed within me. If ye say, How we will persecute him! And that the root of the matter is found in me; Be ye afraid of the sword: For wrath [bringeth] the punishments of the sword, That ye may know there is a judgment." — Job 19:23-29 (ASV)

The Spirit of God, at this time, seems to have powerfully worked on the mind of Job. Here he witnessed a good confession, declared the soundness of his faith, and the assurance of his hope. Here is much of Christ and heaven; and he who said such things as these declared plainly that he sought the better country, that is, the heavenly one. Job was taught by God to believe in a living Redeemer, to look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come; he comforted himself with the expectation of these.

Job was assured that this Redeemer of sinners from the yoke of Satan and the condemnation of sin was his Redeemer, and he expected salvation through him; and that he was a living Redeemer, though not yet come in the flesh; and that at the last day he would appear as the Judge of the world, to raise the dead, and complete the redemption of his people. With what pleasure holy Job enlarges upon this!

May these faithful sayings be engraved by the Holy Spirit upon our hearts. We are all concerned to see that the root of the matter be in us. A living, life-giving, commanding principle of grace in the heart, is the root of the matter; as necessary to our religion as the root of the tree, to which it owes both its stability and its fruitfulness. Job and his friends differed concerning the methods of Providence, but they agreed in the root of the matter, the belief of another world.