Job 19:12

Job 19:12 His troops come together, and raise up their way against me, and encamp round about my tabernacle.

Ver. 12. His troops come together] i.e. Troops of tribulations and temptations, of pirates and robbers, σπειρατηρια (as the Seventy have it). Sickness and other sorrows are God’s soldiers, Mat 8:8-9, and they seldom come single, Jas 1:2, but trooping and treading on the heels of one another, Concateuata piorum crux; a company comes.

And raise up their way against me] As soldiers besieging a place cast up their trenches and fortifications. Vatablus rendereth it, And have beaten their way upon me; that is, saith he, tribulations have so often passed over me, that they have made a pathway upon me, more transeuntium, as passengers use to do.

And encamp round about my tabernacle] Afflictions hem me in on every side; the troops of troubles besiege me so straitly, that I can no way in all the world find relief or comfort; which, now as by a strong hand, yea, as by a strong host, are withheld from my soul; and so are like to be for a long season, as sieges are many times. Heman was afflicted and ready to die from his youth up, suffering those terrors, Psa 88:15. Job was a man of sorrows.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Job 19:12. His troops come together — My afflictions, which are but God’s instruments and soldiers marching under his conduct; and raise up their way against me — Cast up a bank, or make a trench about me, as an army besieging a place; or raise a causeway or path, as pioneers usually do, in low and marshy grounds, for the march of an army: that is, God removes all impediments out of the way, and lays me open to troubles and calamities of every kind.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

12 His troops came together,

And threw up their way against me,

And encamped round about my tent.

13 My brethren hath He removed far from me,

And my acquaintance are quite estranged from me.

14 My kinsfolk fail,

And those that knew me have forgotten me.

15 The slaves of my house and my maidens,

They regard me as a stranger,

I am become a perfect stranger in their eyes.

It may seem strange that we do not connect Job 19:12 with the preceding strophe or group of verses; but between Job 19:7 and Job 19:21 there are thirty στίχοι, which, in connection with the arrangement of the rest of this speech in decastichs (accidentally coinciding remarkably with the prominence given to the number ten in Job 19:3), seem intended to be divided into three decastichs, and can be so divided without doing violence to the connection. While in Job 19:12, in connection with Job 19:11, Job describes the course of the wrath, which he has to withstand as if he were an enemy of God, in Job 19:13. he refers back to the degradation complained of in Job 19:9. In Job 19:12 he compares himself to a besieged (perhaps on account of revolt) city. God's גדוּדים (not: bands of marauders, as Dietr. interprets, but: troops, i.e., of regular soldiers, synon. of צבא, Job 10:17, comp. Job 25:3; Job 29:25, from the root גד, to unite, join, therefore prop. the assembled, a heap; vid., Frst's Handwrterbuch) are the bands of outwards and inward sufferings sent forth against him for a combined attack (יחד). Heaping up a way, i.e., by filling up the ramparts, is for the purpose of making the attack upon the city with battering-rams (Job 16:14) and javelins, and then the storm, more effective (on this erection of offensive ramparts (approches), called elsewhere שׁפך סללה, vid., Keil's Archologie, 159). One result of this condition of siege in which God's wrath has placed him is that he is avoided and despised as one smitten of God: neither love and fidelity, nor obedience and dependence, meet him from any quarter. What he has said in Job 17:6, that he is become a byword and an abomination (an object to spit upon), he here describes in detail. There is no ground for understanding אחי in the wider sense of relations; brethren is meant here, as in Psa 69:9. He calls his relations קרובי, as Psa 38:12. ידעי are (in accordance with the pregnant biblical use of this word in the sense of nosse cum affectu et effectu) those who know him intimately (with objective suff. as Psa 87:4), and מידּעי, as Psa 31:12, and freq., those intimately known to him; both, therefore, so-called heart-or bosom-friends. בּיתי גּרי Jer. well translates inquilinin domus meae; they are, in distinction from those who by birth belong to the nearer and wider circle of the family, persons who are received into this circle as servants, as vassals (comp. Exo 3:22, and Arabic jâr, an associate, one sojourning in a strange country under the protection of its government, a neighbour), here espec. the domestics. The verb תּחשׁבוּני (Ges. 60) is construed with the nearest feminine subject. These people, who ought to thank him for taking them into his house, regard him as one who does not belong to it (זר); he is looked upon by them as a perfect stranger (נכרי), as an intruder from another country.

Keil & Delitzsch — Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1861–1891) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API. (Old Testament only.)

His manifold afflictions.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

troops--Calamities advance together like hostile troops (Job 10:17).

raise up . . . way--An army must cast up a way of access before it, in marching against a city (Isa 40:3).

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

12. raise up their way] i. e. cast up a way or high bank on which to advance againt the beleaguered fort or city.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

He hath put my brethren far from me,.... As it is one part of business in war to cut off all communication between the enemy and their confederates and auxiliaries, and to hinder them of all the help and assistance from them they can; so Job here represents God dealing with him as with an enemy, and therefore keeps at a distance from him all such from whom he might expect comfort and succour, as particularly his brethren; by whom may be meant such who in a natural relation are strictly and properly brethren; for such Job had, as appears from Job 42:11; who afterwards paid him a visit, and showed brotherly love to him; but for the present the affliction that God laid upon him had such an influence on theft, as to cause them to stand aloof off, and not come near him, and show any regard unto him; and as this was the effect of the afflicting hand of God, Job ascribes it to him, and which added to his affliction; see Psa 69:8;

and mine acquaintance are verily estranged from me; such as knew him in the time of his prosperity, and frequently visited him, and conversed with him, and he with them; but now, things having taken a different turn in his outward circumstances, they carried it strange to him, as if they had never been acquainted with him: "si fueris felix", &c.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

His troops - The calamities which he had sent, and which are here represented as “armies” or “soldiers” to accomplish his work. It is not probable that he refers here to the bands of the Chaldeans and the Sabeans, that had robbed him of his property, but to the calamities that had come upon him, “as if” they were bands of robbers.

And raise up their way - As and army that is about to lay siege to a city, or that is marching to attack it, casts up a way of access to it, and thus obtains every facility to take it; see Isa 40:3, note; Isa 57:14, note.

And encamp round about my tabernacle - In the manner of an army besieging a city. Often an army is encamped in this manner for months or even years, in order to reduce the city by famine.

My tabernacle - My tent; my dwelling.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Troops: (latrones) "free-booters," (Haydock) or "soldiers." (Sanctius) --- Those nations made a practice of plundering one another’s territories, without any declaration of war. Mercury and Autolychus are praised for thefts of this description. (Odys. xix.) See Judges xi. 3. Septuagint, "his temptations (Calmet; or militia; Greek: peirateria) came rushing together upon me; lying down (Haydock) in ambush, (Calmet) they surrounded my paths." (Haydock)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

His troops, i.e. my afflictions, which are but God’s instruments and soldiers marching under his conduct.

Raise up their way; either,

1. Cast a bank or trench round about me, as an army doth when they go to besiege a place. Or rather,

2. Make a causeway or raised path, as pioneers usually do in low and waterish grounds for the march of an army. God removes all impediments out of the way, and lays me open to all manner of mischief.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

12. Gives the three stages of a siege: invasion; the throwing up of a mound; and, finally, complete investment. In their attacks on walled places both the Assyrians and the Egyptians used to cast up mounds or “banks.”’ 2Ki_19:32; Isa_37:33; Jer_32:24. These not only enabled the besiegers to push their battering rams up to the fortress, but at the same time to scale its walls. The judgments of God, subjecting man to extreme suffering, are often spoken of under the figure of a siege. Isa_29:3.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

His troops come together. (comp. Job_16:13, "His archers compass me round about It seems to Job that God brings against him a whole army of assailants, who join their forces together and proceed to the attack. Clouds of archers, troops of ravagers, come about him, and fall upon him from every side. And raise up their way against me; rather, and cast up their bank against me. Job still regards himself as a besieged city (see ver. 10), and represents his assailants as raising embankments to hem him in, or mounds from which to batter his defences (compare the Assyrian sculptures, Passim). and encamp round about my tabernacle; i.e. "my tent," or "my dwelling."

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Troops - My afflictions, which are God's soldiers marching under his conduct. Raise - Cast up a trench round about me.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

they build their road Heb. ויסלו, an expression of a highway (מסלה).

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.