Replies

From: Job 19:21-27

Despite everything, Job trusts in God

[19] All my intimate friends abhor me,
amid those whom I loved have turned against me.
[20] My bones cleave to my skin and to my flesh,
and I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.
[21] Have pity on me, have pity on me, O you my friends,
for the hand of God has touched me!
[22] Why do you, like God, pursue me?
Why are you not satisfied with my flesh?

[23] Oh that my words were written!
Oh that they were inscribed in a book!
[24] Oh that with an iron pen and lead
they were graven in the rock for ever!
[25] For I know that my Redeemer lives,
and at last he will stand upon the earth;
[26] and after my skin has been thus destroyed,
then from my flesh I shall see God,
[27] whom I shall see on my side,
and my eyes shall behold, and not another.
My heart faints within me!

*********************************************************************************************
Commentary:

19:21-22. This appeal to the three friends uses the same wording as used in the
Psalms with reference to God: “Be merciful to me, O God, he merciful to me”
(Ps 57:1; cf. 9:13; 31:9) etc. Job begs his friends to take pity on him in his mis-
fortune and not torment him by leveling accusations as if putting themselves in
the place of God. Genuine friendship implies kindness: “Mercy is the overflow of
charity, which brings with it also an overflow of justice. Mercy means keeping
one’s heart totally alive, throbbing in a way that is both human and divine, with a
love that is strong, self-sacrificing and generous (St Josemaria Escrivá, Friends
of God, 232).

19:25. “I know that my Redeemer lives.” As in 16:19, there is the idea of an ex-
traordinary being coming to Job’s rescue. But in the earlier speech this perso-
nage was a witness for the defence in a lawsuit. Here, however, the redeemer
(goel in Hebrew: cf. the note on Ruth 2:18-23) has an institutional meaning: ac-
cording to the Law and to tradition the goel was the closest family relative, the
person on whom it was incumbent to defend infringed rights, sometimes by re-
claiming property unjustly seized, sometimes by redeeming the relative from
slavery, and even avenging his death (cf. Ex 6:6; Lev 25:23, 47; Num 35:21).
God is given the title of goel in passages that interpret the return from exile in
Babylon as a form of redemption carried out in an exceptionally remarkable
way (cf. Is 59:20; 60:16; 63:16; Jer 50:34).

Job solemnly proclaims his faith in his goel. It is surprising that he should apply
this title to God, given that he is the one who has ill-treated and humiliated him,
and it is not clear how he could be both offender and redeemer. However, God
can be depicted as both, because in his profound inner tension Job appeals to
God for help almost at the very same time as he makes complaint against Him
(cf. 16:7-9, 21-22). In spite of its being God who has so incomprehensibly inflic-
ted suffering on him, God is still the living God, the only one who can change
the situation, if he so wills, and rehabilitate Job in the eyes of his friends. In
that sense he is Job’s god. Besides, it was common practice of Jews to call
on God as their goel in that period.

In line with rabbinical interpretation, St Jerome translated this term in the Vul-
gate as “Redemptor”, and from then on Christian tradition on interpreted it to
mean the Messiah, more specifically, the risen Messiah who lives forever as
mankind’s Redeemer. St Thomas, taking up this ancient tradition, commented:
“Man, who was created as immortal by God, brought death to himself through
sin, as we are told in Romans 5:12 [...]; only through Christ could mankind he
redeemed from that sin, and this is what Job perceived with the eyes of faith.
Christ redeemed us from sin by dying for us […]. Mankind itself has been re-
stored to its fullness by being raised hack to life […], and the life of the Risen
Christ will he given to all men on the day of resurrection” (Epositio super Iob,
19, 15). And St Gregory, in his time, wrote: “Even those who are not numbered
among the faithful know that Christ was scourged and jeered, that he suffered
many blows and was crowned with thorns, spat upon, crucified and put to death.
But I believe with certainty that he lives beyond death: I freely confess that my
Saviour, who died at the hands of evil men, lives” Moralia in lob. 3, 14, 54.)

“At last he will stand up on the earth [or dust]”. What Job probably means is
that God’s judgment is the one which matters; compared with it all human judg-
ments are like dust. God, who is in heaven (cf. 16:19), is the only one who,
because he endures for ever, judges calmly and dispassionately.

On the basis of the Vulgate translation, which reads, “in the last day I shall rise
out of the earth’’, Christian tradition has read these words as an announcement
of the resurrection of the dead at the end of time which is a sharing in Christ’s
resurrection: “As [God] the Father possesses all life in himself, so he allowed
the Son to possess life perfectly. Therefore, the first cause of the resurrection
of men is the life of the Son of God” (St Thomas, Expositio super lob, 19, 25).
St Gregory the Great puts it more simply: ‘’Our Saviour died so that we would
no longer need to live in fear of death, and he rose from the dead so that we
could put our trust in the hope of resurrection (Moralia in lob. 3, 14, 55).

19:26. As the RSV note says, the original text is open to various interpretations,
particularly the second part, “from my flesh I shall see God’’. The Spanish [and
RSV], which keep close to the Hebrew, implies that Job expects to confront
God directly that is, see God) despite his own great weakness. The New Vul-
gate adapts the Vulgate to bring it closer to the Hebrew: the Vulgate on this
point interpreted how the resurrection of the dead would work: “I shall be clothed
again with m skin, and in my flesh I shall see my God.’’ In line with that interpre-
tation, the text has often been used in the tradition of the Church in connexion
with the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead. For example. St Clement of
Rome uses it to remind the faithful of Corinth about the promise of future resur-
rection; and he comments: “Therefore, with this hope we unite our souls to the
One who is faithful to his promises and just in all his judgments. He who com-
manded us not to lie will not himself tell a lie; deception is the only thing that is
impossible to God’’ (Ad Corinthios, 26).

However, even if Job were not speaking explicitly about the resurrection at the
end of time, he clearly desires to enter into a very close relationship with God:
He is his redeemer. He is the author of life, and He endures forever. Job hopes
to retain a hold on life and see God “with (his) eyes” (cf. v. 27) and converse per-
sonally with Him and not with a stranger, as it were (”and not another”). The
passage, therefore, is a great canticle of hope in everlasting life, spoken from
the depths of misery.

*********************************************************************************************
Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.