into which he is now soon to be changed, will He, the Rescuer of his honour, arise (קוּם, as in Deu 19:15; Psa 27:12; Psa 35:11, of the rising up of a witness, and as e.g., Psa 12:6, comp. Psa 94:16, Isa 33:10, of the rising up and interposing of a rescuer and help) and set His divine seal to Job's own testimony thus made permanent in the monumental inscription. Oetinger's interpretation is substantially the same: “I know that He will at last come, place himself over the dust in which I have mouldered away, pronounce my cause just, and place upon me the crown of victory.”
A somewhat different connection of the thought is obtained, if ואני is taken not progressively, but adversatively: “Yet I know,” etc. The thought is then, that his testimony of his innocence need not at all be inscribed in the rock; on the contrary, God, the ever living One, will verify it. It is difficult to decide between them; still the progressive rendering seems to be preferable, because the human vindication after death, which is the object of the wish expressed in Job 19:23, is still not essentially different from the divine vindication hoped for in Job 19:25, which must not be regarded as an antithesis, but rather as a perfecting of the other designed for posterity. Job 19:25 is, however, certainly a higher hope, to which the wish in Job 19:23. forms the stepping-stone. God himself will avenge Job's blood, i.e., against his accusers, who say that it is the blood of one who is guilty; over the dust of the departed He will arise, and by His majestic testimony put to silence those who regard this dust of decay as the dust of a sinner, who has received the reward of his deeds.
But is it perhaps this his hope of God's vindication, expressed in Job 19:25, which (as Schlottmann and Hahn,[1]
- ↑ Hahn, after having in his pamphlet, de spe immortalitatis sub V.T. gradatim exculta, 1845, understood Job's confession distinctly of a future beholding in this world, goes further in his Commentary, and entirely deprives this confession of the character of hope, and takes all as an expression of what is present. We withhold our further assent.
