Job 19:2

Job 19:2 How long will ye vex my soul, and break me in pieces with words?

Ver. 2. How long will ye vex my soul?] viz. With your furious and reproachful charges and criminations? Have I not misery enough already, but you must lay more load of scorn and contempt upon me; and so go on to trouble me by adding to my saddest sorrows, such as pierce to the very soul? Call you this comforting an afflicted friend? Hoccine est maestum consolari?

How long will ye break me in pieces with words?] Words also have their weight, and if hard and harsh, Leniter volant, non leniter violant. Like mauls, they break the heart in pieces; like a rack, they torment it, Psa 42:10. As with a murdering weapon in my bones, mine enemies reproached me. You shall find some, saith Erasmus, that if death be threatened can despise it; but to be belied, reproached, slandered, they cannot brook, nor from revenge contain themselves. Job was a strong man both in faith and patience, yet put hard to it by the hard words given him by Bildad and the rest, who did rather hurt his ear, by the loudness of their voices, than helped his heart, by the force of their reproofs. God’s servants "must not strive, but be gentle," 2Ti 2:23-24, "showing all meekness to all men," Tit 3:2 Jas 3:17. Gentle showers comfort the earth, when dashing storms drown the seed. There is a twofold inconvenience followeth upon bitter and boisterous proceedings with a supposed offender. First, the party looketh not so much to his own failing as to their passion. Secondly, as he is unconvinced, so they are not esteemed; but though they have the right on their side, yet they lose the due regard of their cause and reverence of their persons.

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 19:2-3. And break me in pieces with words — With mere empty words, void of sense or argument; with your impertinent and unedifying discourses and bitter reproaches. These ten times have ye reproached me — That is, many times, a certain number being put for an uncertain. Ye make yourselves strange — You carry yourselves like strangers to me, are not affected with my calamities, and condemn me as if you had never known my integrity and piety.

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

JOB’S FIFTH REPLY

1. Then Job answered — His friends ought to be ashamed of their ill-treatment, for he, and he alone, has the brunt of his error, if error there be, to bear; and the cause at issue really lies between him and his God. It was not enough, however, that God should have overthrown him, hedged him in, degraded and altogether ruined him; but his brethren, his wife, and his bosom friends, and even his servants, have turned against him. His wreck is so complete that he has thus far escaped only with the skin of his teeth. Yet in the darkest of all mortal hours there gleams upon him an incomparable revelation of hope, which he esteems so precious that he would have it inscribed on the rock, where all the world might see and read, and that forever.

Introduction — Even suppose there should be error, it is sad enough for Job that he bear its consequences, without being perpetually and maliciously reminded not only of his error but of his shame, Job_19:2-5.

2. Bildad’s repeated how long, (see chap. 18,) Job hurls back with an indignation which is reflected in an exaggerated “ten times” of the next verse.

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

Verse 2. How long will ye vex my soul] Every thing that was irritating, vexatious, and opprobrious, his friends had recourse to, in order to support their own system, and overwhelm him. Not one of them seems to have been touched with a feeling of tenderness towards him, nor does a kind expression drop at any time from their lips! They were called friends; but this term, in reference to them, must be taken in the sense of cold-blooded acquaintances. However, there are many in the world that go under the sacred name of friends, who, in times of difficulty, act a similar part. Job's friends have been, by the general consent of posterity, consigned to endless infamy. May all those who follow their steps be equally enrolled in the annals of bad fame!

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

XIX.

(2) How long?—Job begins as Bildad himself had begun in both cases. His last speech had been so offensive and unfeeling that Job may well ask “How long will ye vex my soul, and break me in pieces with words?” Moreover, Bildad had infused a kind of personal malice into his charges, which Job felt most keenly, so that he is constrained to ask, “If indeed I have erred, doth not my error remain with myself? I alone suffer for it, and ye do not even sympathise or suffer with me.”

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

2. Job_19:13-22. Then even a more touching complaint of the alienation of men from him—which God has caused.

2. There is more than impatience expressed in the words vex (afflict) and “break in pieces”; the words suggest the crushing effect which the friends’ insinuations of wickedness had on Job’s spirit.

Job, forsaken of God and men, and without hope in this life, rises to the assurance that God will yet appear to vindicate him, and that his eyes shall see him on his side in joy

2–5. Job expresses his impatience of his friends’ words; and repudiates the inferences of his guilt which they draw from his calamities, declaring that his calamities are due to the unjust dealing of God.

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.

These ten times have ye reproached me,.... Referring not to ten sections or paragraphs, in which they had done it, as Jarchi; or to the five speeches his friends, in which their reproaches were doubled; or to Job's words, and their answer, as Saadiah; for it does not denote an exact number of their reproaches, which Job was not so careful to count; but it signifies that he had been many times reproached by them; so Aben Ezra, and in which sense the phrase is often used, see Gen 31:7; it is the lot of good men in all ages to be reproached by carnal and profane sinners, on account of religion, and for righteousness' sake, as Christians are for the sake of Christ and his Gospel; and which Moses esteemed greater riches than all the treasures of Egypt; but to be reproached by friends, and that as an hypocrite and a wicked man, as Job was, must be very cutting; and this being often repeated, as it was an aggravation of the sin of his friends, so likewise of his affliction and patience:

ye are not ashamed, so that ye make yourselves strange to me; they looked shy at him; would not be free and friendly with him, but carried it strange to him, and seemed to have their affections alienated from him. There should not be a strangeness in good men one to another, since they are not aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, to the grace of God, and communion with him; since they are fellow citizens, and of the household of God; belong to the same city, share in the same privileges, are of the same family, children of the same father, and brethren one of another, members of the same body, heirs of the same grace and glory, and are to dwell together in heaven to all eternity; wherefore they should not make themselves strange to each other, but should speak often, kindly, and affectionately, one to another, and freely converse together about spiritual things; should pray with one another, and build up each other on their most holy faith, and by love serve one another, and do all good offices mutually that lie in their power, and bear one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law Christ: but, instead of this, Job's friends would scarcely look at him, much less speak one kind word to him; yea, they "hardened themselves against" him, as some (e) render the word; had no compassion on him or pity for him in his distressed circumstances, which their relation to him obliged unto, and was due unto him on the score of friendship; nay, they "mocked" at him, which is the sense of the word, according to Ben Gersom (f); and of this he had complained before, Job 12:4; and with some (g) it has the signification of impudence and audaciousness, from the sense of the word in the Arabic language, see Isa 3:9; as if they behaved towards him in a very impudent manner: or, though they "knew" him, as the Targum paraphrases it, yet they were "not ashamed" to reproach him; though they knew that he was a man that feared God; they knew his character and conversation before his all afflictions came on, and yet traduced him as an hypocrite and a wicked man. Whatever is sinful, men should be ashamed of, and will be sooner or later; not to be ashamed thereof is an argument of great hardness and impenitence; and among other things it becomes saints to be ashamed of their making themselves strange to one another. Some render it interrogatively (h), "are ye not ashamed?" &c. you may well be ashamed, if you are not; this is put in order to make them ashamed.

(e) "indurastis facies vestras contra me", Vatablus; so Broughton. (f) "Erubescitis subsannare me", Pagninus. (g) Drusius; so Schultens. (h) So Junius & Tremellius, Piscator.

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

How long will ye vex my soul? - Perhaps designing to reply to the taunting speech of Bildad; Job 18:2. “He” had asked “how long it would be ere Job would make an end of empty talk?” “Job” asks, in reply, “how long” they would torture and afflict his soul? Or whether there was on hope that this would ever come to an end!

And break me in pieces - Crush me, or bruise me - like breaking any thing in a mortar, or breaking rocks by repeated blows of the hammer. “Noyes.” He says they had crushed him, as if by repeated blows.

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

With mere empty words, void of sense or argument; with your impertinent and unedifying discourses, and bitter reproaches, as it followeth.

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

Job’s Replywill you grieve Heb. תגיון, an expression of grief (תוגה).

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.