Job 19:5

19:1-7 Job's friends blamed him as a wicked man, because he was so afflicted; here he describes their unkindness, showing that what they condemned was capable of excuse. Harsh language from friends, greatly adds to the weight of afflictions: yet it is best not to lay it to heart, lest we harbour resentment. Rather let us look to Him who endured the contradiction of sinners against himself, and was treated with far more cruelty than Job was, or we can be.

If indeed ye will magnify yourselves against me,.... Look and talk big, set up themselves for great folk, and resolve to run him down; open their mouths wide against him and speak great swelling words in a blustering manner; or magnify what they called an error in him, and set it out in the worst light they could: and plead against me my reproach; his affliction which he was reproached with, and was pleaded against him as an argument of his being a wicked man; if therefore they were determined to go on after this manner, and insist on this kind of proof, then he would have them take what follows.

Verse 5. - If indeed ye will magnify yourselves against me . If you have no sense of justice, and are disinclined to pay any heed to my expostulations; if you intend still to insist on magnifying yourselves against me, and bringing up against me my "reproach;" then let me make appeal to your pity. Consider my whole condition - how I stand with God, who persecutes me and "destroys" me (ver. 10); how I stand with my relatives and such other friends as I have beside yourselves, who disclaim and forsake me (vers. 13-19); and how I am conditioned with respect to my body, emaciated and on the verge of death (ver. 20); and then, if neither your friendship nor your sense of justice will induce you to abstain from persecuting me, abstain at any rate for pity's sake (ver. 21). And plead against me my reproach . Job's special "reproach" was that God had laid his hand upon him. This was a manifest fact, and could not be denied. His "comforters" concluded from it that he was a monster of wickedness. Job 19:5

5. magnify, &c.—Speak proudly (Ob 12; Eze 35:13). against me—emphatically repeated (Ps 38:16). plead … reproach—English Version makes this part of the protasis, "if" being understood, and the apodosis beginning at Job 19:6. Better with Umbreit, If ye would become great heroes against me in truth, ye must prove (evince) against me my guilt, or shame, which you assert. In the English Version "reproach" will mean Job's calamities, which they "pleaded" against him as a "reproach," or proof of guilt.

Magnify yourselves against me, i.e. use lofty, and imperious, and contemptuous speeches against me; or seek praise and honour from others, by your conquering or outreasoning of me. My reproach; either, 1. Your reproaches of me; if your reproachful and censorious speeches must pass for solid arguments. Or, 2. My wickedness, which, if true, were just matter of reproach, and the cause of all my miseries. Or, 3. My contemptible and calamitous condition, for which you reproach and condemn me as a hypocrite and wicked man.

If, indeed, ye 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.

1 Then began Job, and said: 2 How long will ye vex my soul, And crush me with your words? 3 These ten times have ye reproached me; Without being ashamed ye astound me. 4 And if I have really erred, My error rests with myself. 5 If ye will really magnify yourselves against me, And prove my reproach to me: 6 Know then that Eloah hath wronged me, And hath compassed me with His net. This controversy is torture to Job's spirit; enduring in himself unutterable agony, both bodily and spiritually, and in addition stretched upon the rack by the three friends with their united strength, he begins his answer with a well-justified quousque tandem. תּגיוּן (Norzi: תּוגיוּן) is fut. energicum from הוּגה (יגה), with the retention of the third radical., Ges. 75, rem. 16. And in וּתדכּאוּנני (Norzi: וּתדכּוּנני with quiescent Aleph) the suff. is attached to the n of the fut. energicum, Ges. 60, rem. 3; the connecting vowel is a, and the suff. is ani, without epenthesis, not anni or aneni, Ges. 58, 5. In Job 19:3 Job establishes his How long?

Ten times is not to be taken strictly (Saad.), but it is a round number; ten, from being the number of the fingers on the human hand, is the number of human possibility, and from its position at the end of the row of numbers (in the decimal system) is the number of that which is perfected (vid., Genesis, S. 640f.); as not only the Sanskrit daan is traceable to the radical notion "to seize, embrace," but also the Semitic עשר is traceable to the radical notion "to bind, gather together" (cogn. קשׁר). They have already exhausted what is possible in reproaches, they have done their utmost. Renan, in accordance with the Hebr. expression, transl.: Voil (זה, as e.g., Genesis 27:36) la dixime fois que vous m'insultez. The ἅπ. γεγρ. תּהכּרוּ is connected by the Targ. with הכּיר (of respect of persons equals partiality), by the Syr. with כּרא (to pain, of crvecoeur), by Raschi and Parchon with נכּר (to mistake) or התנכּר (to alienate one's self), by Saadia (vid., Ewald's Beitr.

4. All his armies are routed in the field, and his strong places carried. "He hath destroyed me on every side," Job 19:10. 5. The enemy proceeds to the greatest length of outrage, wasting every thing with fire and sword. "He hath kindled his wrath against me, and treateth me like one of his adversaries, Job 19:11. 6. He is cooped up in a small camp with the wrecks of his army; and in this he is closely besieged by all the power of his foes, who encompass the place, and raise forts against it. "His troops come together, and raise up their way against me, and encamp round about my tabernacle." 7. Not receiving any assistance from friends or neighbors, he abandons all hope of being able to keep the field, escapes with the utmost difficulty, and is despised and neglected by his friends and domestics because he has been unfortunate. "I am escaped with the skin of my teeth," Job 19:20. "My kinsfolk have failed-all my intimate friends abhorred me," Job 19:14-19. JOB 19: 12 His troops come on together, build a siege ramp against me, and encamp around my tent. JOB 19: 13 “He has put my brothers far from me. My acquaintances are wholly estranged from me. JOB 19: 14 My relatives have gone away. My familiar friends have forgotten me. 1. Writing in a book, formed either of the leaves of the papyrus, already described, (see on Job 8:11 (note)), or on a sort of linen cloth. A roll of this kind, with unknown characters, I have seen taken out of the envelopments of an Egyptian mummy. Denon, in his travels in Egypt, gives an account of a book of this kind, with an engraved facsimile, taken also out of an Egyptian mummy.