And though after my skin worms
destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: Whom I shall see for
myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be
consumed within me. (Job 19:26-27)
How Job benefits from the redeemer’s
‘rising above the dust’ is detailed in verses 26-27: after Job’s death, Job
will be utterly reconciled with God. Although this is not the language he uses,
several factors favour this interpretation. First, ‘skin’ is used as a synecdoche
for one’s whole body elsewhere in Job (2:4; 7:5); its being ‘struck off’ (my
tr.) thus implies Job’s physical death. This means that Job looks for the
benefits of his redeemer’s work both ‘now’ (16:19), and after Job is in the
grave. Second, Job uses a verb for ‘seeing’ God that often denotes prophetic
visions of the divine while ḥāzah can mean to look at something intently
(Prov. 24:32; Mic. 4:11), it is easy to find examples of its denoting visions
of God (Exod. 24:11; Num. 24:4, 16; Pss 11:7; 17:15; 27:4; 63:3; Isa. 30:10).
Job’s sight of God is not some casual glance: it stands for that intimacy and
joy and worship for which Moses and David longed. This is confirmed when Job
specifies that he will see God, ‘and not another’ (literally, ‘and not a
stranger’; v. 27). This vision will reverse the alienation Job suffers (vv. 13,
15, 17). God will not be alienated from Job any more, but, because of the
triumph of Job’s redeemer, God and Job will be reunited in friendship. That Job
sees God with his own eyes (v. 27), from within his flesh (Although the min prefixed
to ‘flesh’ in v. 26 could be taken as privative [‘without’ or ‘outside’ Job’s
body, he will see God], the reference to Job’s own eyes suggest it is from
within Job’s body that he will see God after death [i.e. a physical
resurrection]. Both senses fall within the normal range of the preposition),
further implies a physical resurrection as one part of that ultimate
reconciliation to God.
In other words, because Job’s
redeemer triumphs over the dust, Job will be raised to new life and favour in God’s
presence after Job sleeps in the dust. To whatever extent Job’s
soon-approaching death is the final curse and punishment from God, the
inevitable end of God’s attack on him, Job is nevertheless certain that his
redeemer’s work will rescue him from all of God’s anger. Little wonder Job’s
heart faints within him at the thought (v. 27)! Although Job has not retracted
his brutal criticisms of God’s indifference to justice, he amazingly (and
contradictorily) also looks to a reconciliation with God after death because of
the work of his redeemer. For all his dark thoughts of God, Job’s deepest
desire is still to be reconciled; he says nothing anywhere in the debate about
wanting to return to his blessed life, but always obsesses over what God is doing
and how he might speak with him. Furthermore, as elsewhere in these chapters,
Job is eerily close to the truth of his situation without knowing it. There is
a heavenly being treating Job like an enemy, and Job does have a heavenly
redeemer – but Job has mistaken the identity of both. His future is far more
hopeful than he realizes. (Eric Ortlund, Piercing Leviathan: God’s Defeat of
Evil in the Book of Job [New Studies in Biblical Theology 56; Downers
Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 2021], 48-49)
