"I know that my redeemer liveth"
Job 19:13-26 (abridged)
The book of Job is one of the most dramatic poems in all literature. Martin Luther said Job is “more magnificent and sublime than any other book of Scripture.” God allowed Satan to destroy Job’s possessions, then kill Job’s sons and daughters, and finally afflict him with painful boils. Job’s well-meaning friends tried to comfort him in a series of speeches, but Job, a righteous man, held onto hope in God, saying that although God “hath stripped me of my glory” (verse 9), “I know that my redeemer liveth.”
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He hath put my brethren far from me,
and mine acquaintance are verily estranged from me. My kinsfolk have failed, and my familiar friends have forgotten me. They that dwell in mine house, and my maids, count me for a stranger: I am an alien in their sight. I called my servant, and he gave me no answer; I intreated him with my mouth. My breath is strange to my wife, though I intreated for the children's sake of mine own body. Yea, young children despised me; I arose, and they spake against me. All my inward friends abhorred me: and they whom I loved are turned against me. My bone cleaveth to my skin and to my flesh, and I am escaped with the skin of my teeth. . . . Oh that my words were now written! oh that they were printed in a book! That they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever! For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God. |