http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Job+19&version=NIV
2 “How long will you torment me
and crush me with words?
3 Ten times now you have reproached me;
shamelessly you attack me.
4 If it is true that I have gone astray,
my error remains my concern alone.
5 If indeed you would exalt yourselves above me
and use my humiliation against me,
6 then know that God has wronged me
and drawn his net around me.
Job still protests against this characterization. He’s not an evil person. God has wronged him. It is interesting to me that even though Job rants against God’s treatment of him, he still looks forward to the day when he can see God.
25 I know that my redeemer[c] lives,
and that in the end he will stand on the earth.[d]
26 And after my skin has been destroyed,
yet[e] in[f] my flesh I will see God;
27 I myself will see him
with my own eyes—I, and not another.
How my heart yearns within me!
But what’s really going on here? Check out these footnotes:
- Job 19:25 Or vindicator
- Job 19:25 Or on my grave
- Job 19:26 Or And after I awake, / though this body has been destroyed, / then
- Job 19:26 Or destroyed, / apart from
- Job 19:28 Many Hebrew manuscripts, Septuagint and Vulgate; most Hebrew manuscripts me
Is Job’s redeemer / vindicator God? Or someone/something else? Doesn’t it seem odd for Job to spend chapters ranting about God’s treatment of him, and then call God his vindicator? It’s almost like he’s looking for someone else to come in and prove him right.
And the footnote interpretation – “in the end he will stand on my grave. After I awake, though this body has been destroyed, apart from my flesh I will see God – I myself will see him with my own eyes.” I wonder if he’s looking forward to seeing God so he can ask Him why God heaped all of this torment upon him?