#654 Abandoned

Then Job answered and said:

2 “How long will you torment me

and break me in pieces with words?

3 These ten times you have cast reproach upon me;

are you not ashamed to wrong me?

4 And even if it be true that I have erred,

my error remains with myself.

5 If indeed you magnify yourselves against me

and make my disgrace an argument against me,

6 know then that God has put me in the wrong

and closed his net about me.

7 Behold, I cry out, ‘Violence!’ but I am not answered;

I call for help, but there is no justice.

8 He has walled up my way, so that I cannot pass,

and he has set darkness upon my paths.

9 He has stripped from me my glory

and taken the crown from my head.

10 He breaks me down on every side, and I am gone,

and my hope has he pulled up like a tree.

11 He has kindled his wrath against me

and counts me as his adversary.

12 His troops come on together;

they have cast up their siege ramp[a] against me

and encamp around my tent.

13 “He has put my brothers far from me,

and those who knew me are wholly estranged from me.

14 My relatives have failed me,

my close friends have forgotten me.

15 The guests in my house and my maidservants count me as a stranger;

I have become a foreigner in their eyes.

16 I call to my servant, but he gives me no answer;

I must plead with him with my mouth for mercy.

17 My breath is strange to my wife,

and I am a stench to the children of my own mother.

18 Even young children despise me;

when I rise they talk against me.

19 All my intimate friends abhor me,

and those whom I loved have turned against me.

20 My bones stick to my skin and to my flesh,

and I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.

21 Have mercy on me, have mercy 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 engraved in the rock forever!

25 For I know that my Redeemer lives,

and at the last he will stand upon the earth.[b]

26 And after my skin has been thus destroyed,

yet in[c] my flesh I shall see God,

27 whom I shall see for myself,

and my eyes shall behold, and not another.

My heart faints within me!

28 If you say, ‘How we will pursue him!’

and, ‘The root of the matter is found in him,’[d]

29 be afraid of the sword,

for wrath brings the punishment of the sword,

that you may know there is a judgment.” Job 19 ESV

Words are the worse sort of weapons at times, a punch to the face or a kick in the gut would be much kinder than the harshness of someone you thought to be a brother and a friend. 10 times, and he wonders that they have no shame, that they still accuse. Even if it is true that there is some great sin here, then Job owns that alone, they are free to be his comforters, but continue to throw darts instead. If they want to continue to say it is Job's great sin, against his opposing argument, then take care, for if this plague is against me then know it is from God. I think they see it as from God as well given their own arguments, but they are certain that it is God's justice, and Job must warn them, that if this is justice for the life I have led, then where does that leave you?

18 There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts,
but the tongue of the wise brings healing. Proverbs 12:18

Verses 8 through 12 are a city siege in reverse, and he sees God as against him and yet also God as the only One Who can help him. Those who were close to him like his family and present company, would now rather denounce him, disown him, and not answer him. Like Christ there was no beauty to be desired here, so it was easier to be ashamed of him, to hide from him for fear of association. They go on but the cock has not yet crowed here. It is depressing to know how you really stand with men, what little darkness it takes to scare away most, what little laughter and reproach will bind most of the rest, but Job knows somehow, he knows this and it seems quite prophetically, "my Redeemer lives." The word used is (goel), his defender, champion, avenger. You do not know my heart, but my Redeemer does, and be sure He has seen me, knows that I have asked for understanding, for help. He will come and I will see Him. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow, He is with me. He realized his need for an advocate in earlier chapters, but this is a far off, the One Who will pay his debt as a kinsman redeemer, but who will also avenge his suffering. 

See Boaz as Redeemer