a crowd (especially of soldiers) · noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
come
יָ֘בֹ֤אוּya.Vo.'u
H935
to go or come (in a wide variety of applications) · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
together
יַ֤חַדYa.chad
H3162
properly · noun, common masculine singular absolute
up
וַיָּסֹ֣לּוּvai.ya.So.lu
H5549
to mound up (especially a turnpike) · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
way
דַּרְכָּ֑םdar.Kam
H1870
a road (as trodden) · noun, common both genders singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine plural
encamp
וַיַּחֲנ֖וּvai.ya.cha.Nu
H2583
properly · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
about
סָבִ֣יבsa.Viv
H5439
(as noun) a circle · noun, common both genders singular absolute
tabernacle
לְאָהֳלִֽיle.'o.ho.Li
H168
a tent (as clearly conspicuous from a distance) · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Job 30:12 Upon my right hand rise the youth; they push away my feet, and they raise up against me the ways of their destruction.
Job 16:13 His archers compass me round about, he cleaveth my reins asunder, and doth not spare; he poureth out my gall upon the ground.
Job 16:11 God hath delivered me to the ungodly, and turned me over into the hands of the wicked.
Isaiah 10:5-6 O Assyrian, the rod of mine anger, and the staff in their hand is mine indignation.
Isaiah 51:23 But I will put it into the hand of them that afflict thee; which have said to thy soul, Bow down, that we may go over: and thou hast laid th…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Job 19:8-22
Bildad had very disingenuously perverted Job's complaints by making them the description of the miserable condition of a wicked man; and yet he repeats them here, to move their pity, and to work upon their good nature, if they had any left in them.
I. He complains of the tokens of God's displeasure which he was under, and which infused the wormwood and gall into the affliction and misery. How doleful are the accents of his complaints! "He hath kindled his wrath against me, which flames and terrifies me, which burns and pains me," Job 19:11. What is the fire of hell but the wrath of God? Seared consciences will feel it hereafter, but do not fear it now. Enlightened consciences fear it now, bu…
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).
John Gill on Job 19:12
His troops come together,.... Afflictions which are many, and of which it may be said, as was at the birth of God, who had his name from the word here used, "a troop cometh": Genesis 30:11; and these sometimes come together, or follow so quick one upon another, that there is scarce any interval between them, as did Job's afflictions; and they are God's hosts, his troops, his soldiers, which are at his command; and he says to them, as the centurion did to his, to the one, Go, and he goes, and to another, Come, and it comes:
and raise up their way against me; as an army, when it comes against a place, throws up a bank to raise their artillery upon, that they may play it to greater advantage;…
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 J…
The Church Fathers
"His robbers came together, and through me they made their own way." Either Job employs use of the simile that he had chosen in order to say that he is exposed to the attack of the enemies and that they go back and forth without any obstacle on their open way, or he refers to the messenger who announced to him those misfortunes that had befallen him. Indeed, the text says, "While he was still speaking, another messenger came." "His robbers came together." He has developed the metaphor that he had suggested with the name enemy. In fact, since Job said that God came as a king to fight him as an enemy, he now adds, "His robbers came together." It is as if he said, his soldiers, because Scripture usually calls the spies of the enemies "robbers."
His robbers come together, and make themselves a way through me. For 'his robbers' are evil spirits, who busy themselves in hunting out the deaths of men; and these 'make themselves a way' in the hearts of the afflicted, when, amidst the adversities that are undergone outwardly, they do not cease to infuse bad thoughts likewise; of whom it is yet further added; And encamp round about my tabernacle. HISTORICAL INTERPRETATION For they 'encamp round about our tabernacle,' when they encircle the mind on every side with their temptings; which by most wicked prompting they persuade one while to mourn for things temporal, at another time to despair of things eternal, now to go headlong into impatience, and to cast words of blasphemy against God. Yet these words, as we have already said before, agree with blessed Job even taken historically; who, whilst he heaped before his eyes the ills he was enduring, judged himself to be not like a son that must be corrected, but as an enemy stricken with affliction. Through whom even 'His robbers made themselves a way,' in that the evil spirits obtained against him the leave to smite. 'Round about whose tabernacle they encamped,' in that after his substance and his children were taken away, they bruised his whole body too with wounds. But it is very extraordinary, why, when he spoke of the 'robbers,' he added His, clearly with a view to shew that these same robbers belonged to God; on which point, if we make a distinction between the power and the will of evil spirits, it is made evident, why they are called 'God's robbers;' for evil spirits incessantly pant to do us mischief; but while they have a bad will derived from themselves, they have not the power of doing mischief, except the Supreme Will vouchsafes them permission; and while of themselves indeed they long to hurt us unjustly, yet by Almighty God they are not suffered to hurt anyone saving justly; and so whereas the will is unjust in them and the power just, they are at once called 'robbers,' and 'God's robbers,' that it should come from themselves, that they aim to bring down evil things unjustly, and from God that the things so desired they do not consummate saving justly; but because, as we have often said already, the holy man set in the midst of the pain of punishment, one while speaks in his own accents, at another time in the accents of the Church, at another…
Dictionary and topics
Armies · Illustrative of: Numerous and heavy afflictions — Illustrative of: Numerous and heavy afflictions
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
