"I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet from my flesh shall I see God" (Job.19.25 AV & 26 RV).

This is the most remarkable pre-Israelite expression of faith in the resurrection to be found in the Old Testament. That such a faith could exist at so early a time in human history is considered by modern theologians so unlikely that the evident meaning of the passage is disputed and all kinds of variant explanations offered to minimise its significance. Even so, it may well be asked how the old patriarch acquired his very definite faith in a resurrection to earthly life in which happy state he would "see" God.

The present Hebrew text of vs.26 is admitted by all scholars to be "corrupt", that is to say, it has been mutilated by successive copyists and translators so that the Hebrew is now almost unintelligible. The A.V. rendering "and though after my skin worms destroy this body" does not make sense and "worms" has been supplied by the translators anyway; the Revisers substituted (as in the margin) "after I shall awake, though this body be destroyed" by adopting a possible variant reading. Of the few modern translators who have made serious attempts to get at the probable original meaning Margolis has it "when after my skin this is destroyed, then without my flesh shall I see God"; Leeser "after my skin is cut to pieces will this be: and then freed from my body shall I behold God"; Rotherham "and, though, after my skin is struck off, this (followeth), yet, apart from my flesh, shall I see GOD"; Ferrar Fenton "and after this skin is destroyed I shall yet in my flesh gaze on GOD", and Douay "I shall be clothed again with my skin, and in my flesh I will see my God". The RV gives what is probably the best rendering "after my skin has thus been destroyed yet from my flesh shall I see God." The International Critical Commentary (Vol. "Job"—S. R. Driver and G. B. Gray) says that the Hebrew words "from my flesh" can equally mean "from within my flesh" or "away from, outside, my flesh." Most translators appear to have adopted the latter meaning and this obviously with the theological idea that Job would, in the after-life, "see God" in heaven where the body of flesh is a thing of the past. This however ignores the fact that neither Job nor any of his contemporaries had any conception of a spiritual world or a heavenly salvation; whatever understanding of a future life they had was one to be lived upon earth. The passage is therefore best understood as an expression of Job's faith that although, his present disease being incurable and his state hopeless, his skin now ulcerated and corrupting from his afflictions must surely perish and his whole body inevitably be destroyed in death, at a future day his Redeemer would come to earth and stand upon the earth and restore him to life in a new terrestrial body. From within that new body of flesh he will look out and see his Redeemer, God who had so inexplicably hidden himself from Job during the term of the patriarch's suffering but in whom he had never lost faith. Job knew that his misfortunes and sufferings had been at least permitted by God, if not directly inflicted by him. He had long since given up hope that he would recover: death was the only sequel he could see and in his agony he longed and prayed for death. But death was not the end of all things for Job; he knew that he would live again. He expressed that faith in words of rare beauty in ch.14.14-15 "all the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come. Thou shalt call, and I will answer thee: thou wilt have a desire to the work of thine hands". The notable thing about his declaration in ch.19 is his knowledge that this life by resurrection is to be accomplished by means of a redeemer in the New Testament sense. Christ became man's Redeemer by paying a price, the yielding up of his human life upon the Cross. In both instances where the term "Ransom" is used the word implies a deliverance effected in consideration of a price paid. Our Lord does not deliver man in the fashion of a military conqueror who batters down the prison by brute force and so sets the captives free; the act of redemption cost him suffering and death. Now Job uses the Hebrew term which indicates this same idea. Of the two words for "redeemer", "padah" and "goel", padah has the meaning of procuring freedom or release, to deliver, unconditionally; goel means the same thing but upon payment of a price. Job used the word goel, and in so doing anticipated Isaiah, who a thousand years later described the Lord as the goel,, the Redeemer, of Israel, some nineteen times in his prophecy. There are thus three important principles embodied in this 25th verse of which Job was aware and convinced; that the act of redemption was going to cost something, that the Redeemer ever liveth, and that he would "stand upon the earth" at the Last Day, when Job would hear his call, and would answer it. Job knew nothing of Christ; the Redeemer he visualised was God whom he worshipped, but all that he saw and believed and hoped for is fulfilled in the person and work of Christ who is the manifestation of Deity to man.

Job also understood that resurrection is by recreation, the re-emergence of the identity, the personality, in a new body. This is a fundamental principle; at death the old body returns to its dust and its constituent atoms coalesce again with the whole terrestrial mass. In the resurrection, as St. Paul explains in 1 Cor.15.38, "God giveth it a body as it pleased him" a newly-created organism or body adapted to the environment in which the resurrected one knows himself for who he was and who he is. Job fully realised this. Though this skin and this body be destroyed, yet in my flesh, from within my flesh, I shall see God. This is a fair paraphrase of his utterance. He knew full well that his present body, disease-ridden, emaciated, corrupting, must inevitably pass into the grave and be destroyed, but he shouted to the heavens his faith that in a day yet to come he would stand upright in a body of new flesh and in that flesh see God his Redeemer. "Whom I shall see for myself,… and not another, though my reins (body) be consumed within me" he says (vs.27).That is an affirmation of faith in the preservation of his identity, his personality, even although during his sojourn in the grave his terrestrial body has dissolved away and nothing is left. "Then shall the dust return to earth as it was: and the spirit...unto God who gave it" says the Preacher in Eccl.12.7 and this was Job's understanding. He knew that his personality was safe in God's keeping until the day of resurrection and that he would then arise and take up the thread of conscious existence just as a man does when he awakens from his nightly sleep.

From whence did Job obtain this knowledge? There was no Bible—not even the Old Testament—in his day. God had not yet spoken to Israel by Moses and anyway Job was not an Israelite. It is evident that in those early days God had means of imparting knowledge of himself and his plans of which we now know little or nothing. Since Job was of the land of Uz, which took its name from Uz the son of Nahor, Abraham's own brother, it is possible that Job was a descendant of Nahor. In such case, and since Nahor, like Abraham, was a worshipper of God, it could be that the primitive understanding of the Divine purposes which was undoubtedly passed down from father to son from earliest times, and through Noah and Shem at the time of the Flood, reached down to Job through Nahor and afforded the sorely-tried but steadfastly faithful old patriarch this faith in the coming redemption and resurrection which enabled him to endure his affliction in hope of a future guaranteed by the promise of God.

AOH