The verb in the last phrase means to be consumed, to be exhausted, be spent, finished, to be at an end. It can also mean to pine, languish. The KJV translates it in a negative sense and adds the word ‘though’ – even though my reins [literally, kidneys] are consumed within me, I will yet see God. Others express it positively – my heart feints or yearns to see this wonderful day that God has shown me must come.
Job is not speaking of a restoration to health by God before the end of his life. This view seriously fails to consider the words or the context, and is the view of those who fail to understand the power of God and the truth of his word. Job has spoken of his death and the decay of his body; he is deteriorating even as he speaks and he does not expect this process to stop. What consolation would it be to know that he was going to be restored to health if the question of death still remained unanswered? He would still have to die and would still need a Redeemer to raise him from the dead. How would the thought that he was going to be restored to health before his final departure cause the kind of unbounded joy that he expresses? How then would it be clear that he had been delivered from the fear of death that holds all men subject to bondage all their lifetime? Why then does he speak of looking upon his Redeemer with his physical eyes when that Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ, was not yet incarnate, and when Job would not see him with his physical eyes before he died even though restored to health? Why then does he speak of the end of the world and of the last day, which Scripture elsewhere always refers to as the Day of Judgment? This insipid interpretation (Hartley) is obnoxious to everyone who loves God’s word. Job is less concerned with his vindication, as with his final deliverance. This verse is not all about his restoration before his friends, but about his acceptance with God.
Why if Job truly speaks of the resurrection here doesn’t the book end at this point, for the resurrection of the dead must be the climax of the book and it need proceed no further? And why do the friends not refer to this tremendous affirmation? The book of Job has many important lessons to teach us. The reality of the resurrection is one of them but it is far from the only one. The book must proceed in spite of this window of light, for although Job now has this truth to sustain, his trial is not over, nor has he fully learned the lessons that this trial was intended to bring. The friends do not speak of this revelation to Job because they do not want to admit its reality and dismiss it as just further deceit on Job’s past. From their perspective it is impossible that God should really speak to a man like Job and so this prophetic view of the future must be a complete fraud. The less said about it the better.