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Job 19: 25-27: Beatific Vision instead of Bodily Resurrection – Or Both?
Homecoming Lectures 2006
Hywel R. Jones
Contents:
Outline
Translations
Comments by Calvin, Vos, Kline, Barnes
LECTURE OUTLINE
1. Introduction
2. General Character of Statement
a) Claim to knowledge – I know
b) Content of Knowledge – My redeemer lives and will stand
c) Effect of Knowledge – my kidneys are in my chest; be afraid of the sword
3. Beatific Vision instead of Bodily Resurrection
a) Evidence for Beatific Vision
b) Evidence for Bodily Resurrection
4. Beatific Vision and Bodily Resurrection
Basis for this
Exposition of it
5. Conclusion
TRANSLATIONS OF THESE VERSES
KJV
v.25 For I know that my redeemer liveth and that he shall stand at the
latter [day] upon the earth
v.26 And though after my skin [worms] destroy this [body] yet in my flesh
shall I see God
v.27 Whom I shall see for myself and mine eyes shall behold and not another.
Though my reins are consumed within me.
ASV
v.25 But as for me I know that my redeemer liveth and at last he will stand
upon the earth;
v.26 and after my skin, even this body is destroyed then [without] my flesh
shall I see God;
v.27 whom I even I shall see [on my side] and mine eyes shall behold and
[not as a stranger]. My heart is consumed within me.
NIV
v.25 I know that my Redeemer lives and that in the end he will stand upon
the earth
v.26 And after my skin has been destroyed, yet [in] my flesh shall I see God
v.27 I myself will see him with my own eyes – I and not another. How my
heart yearns within me!
ESV
v.25 For I know that my Redeemer lives and [at the last] he will stand upon
the earth
v.26 And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet [in] my flesh I shall
see God
v.27 Whom I shall see for myself and my eyes shall behold and not another.
My heart faints within me.
Ours
v. 25 But as for me I [have come to] know that my [Kinsman-Redeemer] lives
and that he will [rise up] [at] last on the earth [dust].
v.26 And after my skin has been flayed [stripped], I shall see God
without/from (i.e. within) my flesh
v.27 I shall see [him] on my side; my eyes shall see [him] and not as a
stranger [to me]. My kidneys have ended [up] in my chest.
COMMENTS ON THESE VERSES
JOHN CALVIN (Inst 2.10.19; 3.25.4)
They who wish to parade their cleverness, cavil that this is not to be
understood as referring to the final resurrection but to the first day on
which Job hoped that God would deal more kindly with him. This we concede in
part Still, we shall force them to admit whether they are willing or not,
that Job could not have attained this lofty hope if his aspiration had
rested on earth. We must therefore acknowledge that he lifted up his eyes to
a future immortality, for he saw that his redeemer would be with him even as
he lay in the tomb…
This is better recognized from a passage in Ezekiel [i.e. Chapter 37].
GEERHARDUS VOS (Eschatology of the Old Testament, pp. 21-25)
The familiarity with and facile use of the words for practical purposes is
no greater than the extraordinary difficulty of their interpretation...
In other words, I do not venture to find the doctrine of the resurrection
here, but at the same time must add that I feel a certain degree of
diffidence about this position. The resurrection may be there, but the
unusual obscurity of a few words, perhaps due to corruption of the text,
hinders us from outright affirming it.
Which of the two [senses of verse 25a] the sequel and it alone must determine.
Unfortunately, the sequel through its dark text is an inadequate guide,
because it is next to impossible to make out what its obscure words mean.
Now as to verse 26, the text is so obscure that I prefer not to make any
attempt at explaining it. None of the commentators has succeeded in making
out a reasonable sense of the whole statement, even though allowing himself
the greatest liberties with the Hebrew words.
MEREDITH KLINE (Wycliffe Commentary of the Bible)
Here are the beginnings of what progressive revelation would ultimately
enunciate in the doctrines of the coming of Christ at the end times, the
resurrection of the dead and the eternal judgment.
ALBERT BARNES (Commentary on Job)
So far as I can see, all that is fairly implied in the passage, when
properly interpreted, is fully met by the events recorded in the close of
the book. Such an interpretation meets the exigency of the case, accords
with the strain of the argument and with the result, and is the most simple
and natural that has been proposed. These considerations are so weighty in
my mind that they have conducted me to a conclusion, contrary I confess to
what I had hoped to have reached, that this passage ahs no reference to the
Messiah and the doctrine of the resurrection … I confess I have never been
so pained at any conclusion to which I have come in the interpretation of
the Bible, as in the case before us. I would like to have found a distinct
prophecy of the Messiah in this ancient and venerable book.
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