The Hand of God and the Failure of Men Text: Job 19:13-22
Introduction: The Furnace of Isolation
We come now to a passage in the book of Job that is raw, visceral, and profoundly uncomfortable. Job is in the crucible, and the heat has been turned up to its highest setting. We have seen his material possessions stripped away, his children killed in a catastrophic instant, and his body ravaged by excruciating sores. But here, in the heart of his lament, Job describes a suffering that is perhaps the sharpest of all: the agony of total human abandonment. This is the pain of relational collapse, the horror of becoming a stranger to your own household and an object of contempt to those you once loved.
Our modern sensibilities tend to recoil from such passages. We prefer our Christianity to be tidy, our testimonies to be triumphant, and our sufferings to be quickly resolved with a neat and tidy bow. But the Word of God is not interested in our therapeutic sentimentalism. It is interested in the truth, and the truth is that the path of righteousness often leads through the valley of the shadow. And sometimes, in that valley, God ordains that we walk utterly alone.
The central question this passage forces upon us is this: what do you do when the hand of God is heavy upon you, and the hands of men, which should be there to support you, are withdrawn or, worse, turned against you? Job’s friends, as we know, are miserable comforters. They operate on a faulty theological syllogism: God is just, therefore all intense suffering must be a direct punishment for some heinous, hidden sin. They are woodenly orthodox, which is to say, they are heterodox. They take a general principle of sowing and reaping and apply it with all the subtlety of a blacksmith fixing a watch. In their attempt to vindicate God, they persecute His servant.
But this passage is not just about the failure of friends. It is a stark depiction of a man systematically dismantled, stripped of every earthly comfort and every human consolation, until he has nothing left but God. And a God, at that, who appears to be his chief antagonist. This is where faith is shown to be faith. It is easy to trust God when the sun is shining and your friends are clapping you on the back. It is another thing entirely to trust Him when you are sitting on an ash heap, scraping your sores with a piece of pottery, and the only voices you hear are voices of accusation and scorn. This, brothers and sisters, is a severe mercy. It is the stripping away of all idols, so that a man is forced to deal with God as He is, and not as we would like Him to be.
The Text
"He has removed my brothers far from me, And my acquaintances are completely estranged from me. My relatives have failed, And my familiar friends have forgotten me. Those who sojourn in my house and my maidservants count me a stranger. I am a foreigner in their sight. I call to my servant, but he does not answer; I have to implore him with my mouth. My breath is offensive to my wife, And I am loathsome to my own brothers. Even young children reject me; I rise up, and they speak against me. All the men of my counsel abhor me, And those I love have turned against me. My bone clings to my skin and my flesh, And I have escaped only by the skin of my teeth. Pity me, pity me, O you my friends, For the hand of God has smitten me. Why do you persecute me as God does, And are not satisfied with my flesh?"
(Job 19:13-22 LSB)
The Great Unraveling (vv. 13-16)
Job begins by cataloging the complete disintegration of his social world. Notice the methodical, comprehensive nature of this collapse. It moves from the outer circles of relationship to the very heart of his household.
"He has removed my brothers far from me, And my acquaintances are completely estranged from me. My relatives have failed, And my familiar friends have forgotten me. Those who sojourn in my house and my maidservants count me a stranger. I am a foreigner in their sight. I call to my servant, but he does not answer; I have to implore him with my mouth." (Job 19:13-16)
The first thing to notice is the agency. "He has removed..." Who is the "He"? Job is under no illusions. He knows this is not ultimately the work of Satan, or bad luck, or fickle friends. He attributes his isolation directly to the sovereign hand of God. This is crucial. Job’s theology, even in his lament, is robustly sovereign. He knows that God is the one who gives and the one who takes away (Job 1:21). This is both the source of his torment and the only possible ground of his hope. If God is not in charge of this, then no one is, and he is adrift in a meaningless cosmos. But if God is in charge, then even this agonizing isolation must have a purpose.
He describes a cascading failure of covenantal loyalties. Brothers, acquaintances, relatives, familiar friends, they have all failed, forgotten, and become estranged. The bonds of kinship and friendship, which form the very fabric of a stable society, have been utterly dissolved. These are fair-weather friends, whose loyalty was contingent on Job's prosperity. When the hedge of protection was removed, so was their allegiance. This is a profound commentary on the nature of fallen human relationships. Much of what we call friendship is little more than a mutually beneficial alliance, easily broken when one party ceases to be beneficial.
The alienation penetrates his own home. Those who live under his roof, his servants, now treat him like a foreigner. The social order has been turned upside down. The man who was the greatest in the east (Job 1:3), the patriarch and benefactor, is now an outcast in his own house. His authority has evaporated. He calls his servant, and there is no answer. He, the master, must beg for a response. This is a picture of complete social humiliation. All the respect and honor that came with his station have vanished, revealing the fickle nature of worldly esteem.
The Intimate Rejection (vv. 17-19)
The circle of rejection now tightens to the most intimate relationships imaginable.
"My breath is offensive to my wife, And I am loathsome to my own brothers. Even young children reject me; I rise up, and they speak against me. All the men of my counsel abhor me, And those I love have turned against me." (Job 19:17-19)
This is a devastating inventory. His physical decay makes him repulsive to his own wife. The one who is "one flesh" with him is driven away by the stench of his sickness. We recall her earlier counsel: "curse God and die" (Job 2:9). Her faith has buckled, and now her natural affection follows. This is not to condemn her entirely; she too has lost all her children. But it highlights the extremity of Job's desolation. The primary human relationship, the icon of Christ and the church, has been corrupted by suffering.
He is "loathsome" to his own brothers, the sons of his mother's womb. Children in the street mock him. The village elders, the "men of my counsel" who once sought his wisdom, now abhor him. The word "abhor" is a strong one; it means to detest, to find utterly disgusting. And in a final, heartbreaking summary, he says, "those I love have turned against me."
What is happening here? God is systematically removing every human prop from under Job. Every relationship, every source of comfort, affirmation, and support is being kicked away. Why? Because God is determined to teach Job, and us, that He alone is a sufficient foundation. We are inveterate idolaters. We lean on our spouses, our friends, our reputations, our children. We build our sense of self on the approval and affection of others. And in a severe mercy, God sometimes demolishes that entire structure, so that we are left with nothing but Him. He is a jealous God, and He will not share His glory with another.
The Physical and the Spiritual Cry (vv. 20-22)
Job now turns from the relational to the physical, and then issues a desperate plea to the very friends who have been tormenting him.
"My bone clings to my skin and my flesh, And I have escaped only by the skin of my teeth. Pity me, pity me, O you my friends, For the hand of God has smitten me. Why do you persecute me as God does, And are not satisfied with my flesh?" (Job 19:20-22)
The physical description is stark. He is emaciated, a walking skeleton. The phrase "escaped by the skin of my teeth" has entered our language, but here it means he has escaped with nothing but his life, and just barely. He has been stripped down to the absolute bare minimum of existence.
And from this place of utter destitution, he cries out for pity. "Pity me, pity me, O you my friends." There is a deep irony here. He still calls them "friends," clinging to the hope that some remnant of covenant loyalty remains. His plea is based on a correct theological assessment: "For the hand of God has smitten me." He is not asking them to solve his problem. He is not asking for a theological lecture. He is asking for simple, human compassion. He is saying, "Look at me! Don't you see that God is my adversary? Why are you joining His side?"
This brings us to the climax of the passage: "Why do you persecute me as God does, And are not satisfied with my flesh?" This is a staggering accusation. Job's friends, in their zeal to defend God's honor, have become prosecutors. They are piling their own judgment on top of God's. They are kicking a man who is already down. Their error is a failure to understand the difference between God's mysterious, sovereign affliction and man's cruel, self-righteous persecution. God's purpose in this trial is ultimately redemptive, to purify Job's faith. The friends' purpose is to prove their theological system correct, even if it means destroying Job in the process. They have become agents of the Accuser, doing Satan's work for him, all under the guise of piety.
The Forsaken Man and the Faithful God
As we read this, we must see that Job is a type, a foreshadowing, of a greater sufferer to come. The language of total abandonment, of betrayal by familiar friends, of being loathed and despised, of being smitten by the hand of God, where have we heard all this before? This entire passage is a prophetic echo of the cross.
Consider the parallels. Jesus was estranged from His own brothers, who for a time did not believe in Him (John 7:5). He was betrayed by a familiar friend who dipped his bread in the same bowl (Psalm 41:9). His disciples, the men of His counsel, all forsook Him and fled (Matthew 26:56). He was mocked and scorned by the crowds. And on the cross, He cried out in the language of ultimate dereliction, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46).
Job was smitten by the hand of God in a mysterious trial of faith. But Isaiah tells us of the Messiah, "it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief" (Isaiah 53:10). Job's suffering was a test; Christ's suffering was an atonement. Job was stripped of his earthly comforts; Christ was stripped naked and bore the full, undiluted wrath of God against our sin. Job cried out for pity from his friends and received none. Christ, in His agony, received only vinegar and scorn. Job's friends persecuted him as God did; the tormentors of Christ were unwittingly carrying out the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God (Acts 2:23).
This is the gospel lens through which we must read this passage. Job's isolation drives him to the brink of despair, but just a few verses later, it drives him to one of the most magnificent confessions of faith in all of Scripture: "For I know that my Redeemer lives" (Job 19:25). The stripping away of everything human forced him to look for a divine Kinsman-Redeemer. In the same way, our own sufferings, our own experiences of betrayal and loneliness, are meant to do the same thing. They are meant to detach our hearts from the fickle loyalties of this world and attach them to the one Friend who sticks closer than a brother.
When you are abandoned by those you love, remember that Christ entered into that abandonment for you. When your body fails, remember that His body was broken for you. When you feel that the hand of God is against you, remember that the hand of God smote Him in your place. Because He was utterly forsaken, you will never be. Because He was counted as a stranger, you have been brought into the household of God. Job’s suffering was a dark and confusing providence. But looking back from this side of the cross, we see the pattern. God's afflictions are His chisels. He is chipping away everything that is not Christ, everything that is not eternal, in order to conform us to the image of His Son, the truly righteous sufferer who is now the eternally reigning King.