to run after (usually with hostile intent · verb, qal imperfect, 2nd person masculine plural + pronominal suffix
God
אֵ֑ל'El
H410
strength · noun, common masculine singular absolute
satisfied
תִשְׂבָּֽעוּtis.Ba.'u
H7646
to sate · verb, qal imperfect, 2nd person masculine plural
flesh
וּ֝מִבְּשָׂרִ֗יu.mi.be.sa.Ri
H1320
flesh (from its freshness) · conjunction + 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
Psalms 69:26 For they persecute him whom thou hast smitten; and they talk to the grief of those whom thou hast wounded.
Job 2:5 But put forth thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse thee to thy face.
Job 10:16 For it increaseth. Thou huntest me as a fierce lion: and again thou shewest thyself marvellous upon me.
Job 13:25 Wilt thou break a leaf driven to and fro? and wilt thou pursue the dry stubble?
Job 16:11 God hath delivered me to the ungodly, and turned me over into the hands of the wicked.
Job 31:31 If the men of my tabernacle said not, Oh that we had of his flesh! we cannot be satisfied.
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…
Micah 3:3 Who also eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin from off them; and they break their bones, and chop them in pieces, as for the pot,…
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…
as God--has persecuted me. Prefiguring Jesus Christ (Psa 69:26). That God afflicts is no reason that man is to add to a sufferer's affliction (Zac 1:15).
satisfied with my flesh--It is not enough that God afflicts my flesh literally (Job 19:20), but you must "eat my flesh" metaphorically (Psa 27:2); that is, utter the worst calumnies, as the phrase often means in Arabic.
John Gill on Job 19:22
Why do ye persecute me as God,.... As if they were in his stead, or had the same power and authority over him, who is a sovereign Being, and does what he pleases with his creatures, and is not accountable to any for what he does; but this is not the case of men, nor are they to imitate God in all things; what he does is not in all things a warrant to do the like, or to be pleaded and followed as a precedent by them; they should be merciful as he is merciful, but they are not to afflict and distress his people because he does, and which he does for wise ends and reasons; for such a conduct is resented by him, see Zechariah 1:15. God persecuted or pursued and followed Job with one affliction a…
21 Have pity upon me, have pity upon me,
O ye my friends, For the hand of Eloah hath touched me.
22 Wherefore do ye persecute me as God,
And are never satisfied with my flesh?
23 Oh that my words were but written,
That they were recorded in a book,
24 With an iron pen, filled in with lead,
Graven in the rock for ever!
25 And I know: my Redeemer liveth,
And as the last One will He arise from the dust.
In Job 19:21 Job takes up a strain we have not heard previously. His natural strength becomes more and more feeble, and his voice weaker and weaker. It is a feeling of sadness that prevails in the preceding description of suffering, and now even stamps the address to the friends with a tone of i…
The Church Fathers
"Why do you persecute me as the Lord? You hate me: I am for you, as for God, an object of horror; or you are reproaching me, though I admit to being guilty. "And are you not satisfied with my flesh? You would not rejoice if I lived according to the flesh.
"Why do you persecute me as also the Lord does, and are not satisfied with my flesh? Why do you add your wrath to divine wrath without doing this according to God's will? Even though God punishes, he, nonetheless, wants to be good to us—and therefore, why do you insatiably use the harshness of your words against me?" In fact, abusive words are sufficient to devour flesh. So let us fear invectives and insults, because we are aware of the fact that they wound our brothers.
Why do ye persecute me as God; and are filled with my flesh? It is not at variance with the style of piety that he tells that he is persecuted by God. For there is a good persecutor; as when the Lord says of Himself by the lips of the Prophet, Him that privily slandereth his neighbour, him did I persecute. But when any Saint is suffered to be stricken, he knows that he is undergoing persecution, sent against evil he has been guilty of, from the interior ordering. Now the savage minds of the persecutors, when they desire the power to smite, are inflamed against the life of the good not with the ardour of purifying, but with the firebrands of envy; and they do that indeed, which Almighty God allows to be done; in that while there is one cause with God transacted too by their agency, yet there is not one will maintained in that cause, since whilst Almighty God, in loving, is enforcing purification, the wickedness of the unjust is exercising malice in raging. This then that is said, Why do ye persecute me as God? he spoke with reference to the external smiting, not to the interior intention, in that though they execute that externally which God ordained to be done, yet in their doing it they do not seek that which God does, viz. that good men should be purified by means of affliction. Which too may likewise be understood in another sense also. For Almighty God chastens the evil qualities of others so much the more justly in proportion as He has no whit of evil qualities in Himself; but men when they strike others in the course of discipline, ought so to chasten the frailty of another, that they should at the same time have learnt the habit to recall their eyes to their own frailty, so as to consider from themselves how they ought to spare in smiting others, seeing that they are not unaware that they themselves too are worthy of stripes. And so it is said in this case, Why do ye persecute me as God? As if it were expressed in plain words; 'Ye do so afflict me on the grounds of my frailties, as if ye yourselves after the manner of God owned nought of infirmity:' whence it is to be considered, that if perchance there be persons that need sharpness of correction, hard correction is then to be used to them by us, when the hand of God ceases from using the rod; but when strokes from above are upon them, from us there is now due no longer correction but consolation,…
Dictionary and topics
Blasphemy · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Friendship · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
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).
persecute (literally pursue): Job complained that God had tracked him like a hunter (10:16) or a warrior (16:13).
Rashi on Job 19:20
My bones cleaved because I am emaciated from thickness of flesh.
by the skin of my teeth All his flesh was afflicted with boils and worms except his gums.
