Job 19:19

19:19 All my closest friends ¹  detest me;

and those whom ²  I love have turned against me. ³ 

Job 19:22

19:22 Why do you pursue me like God does? ⁴ 

Will you never be satiated with my flesh? ⁵ 

[19:19]  ¹ tn Heb “men of my confidence,” or “men of my council,” i.e., intimate friends, confidants.

[19:19]  ² tn The pronoun זֶה (zeh) functions here in the place of a nominative (see GKC 447 §138.h).

[19:19]  ³ tn T. Penar translates this “turn away from me” (“Job 19,19 in the Light of Ben Sira 6,11,” Bib 48 [1967]: 293-95).

[19:22]  ⁴ sn Strahan comments, “The whole tragedy of the book is packed into these extraordinary words.”

[19:22]  ⁵ sn The idiom of eating the pieces of someone means “slander” in Aramaic (see Dan 3:8), Arabic and Akkadian.