Job 19:28 Commentary and Bible Study

In genuine concern for his friends but also in order to rebuke them for their hostility, Job now warns them of the seriousness of what they are doing and how, by attacking him, they are in danger of bringing God’s judgment on themselves. Their constant search for new ways to harass him, by undermining his faith, by consistently treating him as a guilty man suffering for his sin, by embracing a simplistic view of the government of God in the world which is obviously not borne out by the facts; all of this amounts to persecution. It is as if they have connived together in order to do him harm. This might not be so serious if it were not that Job was a man who – despite all his troubles – was a child of God with faith in his heart. ‘Whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me,’ says Christ, ‘it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea’ (Mark 9:42). The root of the matter is found in Job, that is, the root of a true love and reverence for God. To persecute a true child of God is a matter of the utmost seriousness and one that God will not treat lightly. The three comforters have good reason to fear the consequences of what they are doing when God arises personally to chastise them with perhaps even greater violence than he has chastised his servant Job. There is a day coming when judgment will catch up with them and all unpunished sins will be called to account. Let them therefore realise that there are personal consequences to treating Job so cruelly. Accordingly, God rebukes them severely at the end of the book, and asks Job to pray for them, so that they should be pardoned and delivered from the heavy judgment that would otherwise have fallen on them.