properly · verb, qal active participle, masculine plural construct
house
בֵיתִ֣יvei.Ti
H1004
a house (in the greatest variation of applications · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix
maids
וְ֭אַמְהֹתַיVe.'am.ho.tai
H519
a maidservant or female slave · conjunction + noun, common feminine plural construct + pronominal suffix
count
תַּחְשְׁבֻ֑נִיtach.she.Vu.ni
H2803
properly · verb, qal imperfect, 2nd person masculine plural + pronominal suffix
stranger
לְזָ֣רle.Zar
H2114
to turn aside (especially for lodging) · preposition + adjective, masculine singular absolute
alien
נָ֝כְרִ֗יna.khe.Ri
H5237
strange · adjective, masculine singular absolute
sight
בְעֵינֵיהֶֽםve.'ei.nei.Hem
H5869
an eye (literally or figuratively) · preposition + noun, common feminine dual construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine plural
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 31:31-32 If the men of my tabernacle said not, Oh that we had of his flesh! we cannot be satisfied.
Psalms 123:3 Have mercy upon us, O LORD, have mercy upon us: for we are exceedingly filled with contempt.
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…
They that dwell, &c.--rather, "sojourn": male servants, sojourning in his house. Mark the contrast. The stranger admitted to sojourn as a dependent treats the master as a stranger in his own house.
John Gill on Job 19:15
They that dwell in mine house,.... Not his neighbours, as the Septuagint; for though they dwelt near his house, they did not dwell in it; nor inmates and sojourners, lodgers with him, to whom he let out apartments in his house; this cannot be supposed to have been his case, who was the greatest man in all the east; nor even tenants, that hired houses and lands of him; for the phrase is not applicable to them; it designs such who were inhabitants in his house. Job amidst all his calamities had an house to dwell in; it is a tradition mentioned by Jerom (c), that Job's house was in Carnea, a large village in his time, in a corner of Batanea, beyond the floods of Jordan; and he had people dwelli…
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
"My neighbors, my maids themselves. Those to whom I confided my secrets, that is to say, the flatterers who abandon the one who humbles himself before God; because they say flatterers that they are servile
They that dwell in my house, and my maids, count me for a stranger. The inmates of God's house were the Priests, whose race once set apart in the service of God, was henceforth by office continued in that state. But the 'maids' are not improperly taken for the souls of the Levites, servants to the hidden parts of the tabernacle as it were by a more familiar service to the interior of the bedchamber. Therefore let him say of the Priests, serving with sedulous care, let him say of the Levites attending on the interior of the house of God. They that dwell in my house, and my maids, have counted me for a stranger; in that the Incarnate Lord, Whom they had for long foretold in the words of the Law, they refused to acknowledge and to reverence. And he yet more plainly shews that He was not known by their wicked will, when he adds; And I was as it were an alien in their sight. For our Redeemer whereas He was not recognised by the Synagogue, was rendered 'as it were an alien' in His own house, Which the Prophet plainly witnesses, saying, Wherefore shalt thou be as a settler in the land, and as a wayfaring man that turneth aside to tarry? For whereas He was not heard as the Lord, He was taken not as the owner but for 'a settler of the land;' and He only 'turned aside to tarry as a wayfaring man,' in that He carried off but few out of Judaea, and going on to the calling of the Gentiles finished the journey He had begun; and so 'He was an alien' in their sight, in that while they thought only of the things they could see, they were unable to perceive in the Lord the things they could not see; for whilst they contemn the flesh that was to be seen, they never reached to the unseen Majesty; therefore let it be rightly said; And I was as it were an alien in their sight.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Friendship · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Ingratitude · Often exhibited: By servants — Often exhibited: By servants
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).