Job 19:13 · Bible study
Job 19:13 Commentary: Why Job Blames God for Social Abandonment
Hebrew · 9 what the commentators say
Meaning in one sentence
Why does Job attribute his social ostracism to God? Explore Job 19:13's Hebrew grammar and what it reveals about divine sovereignty in suffering.
Research Summary
- Meaning: Job attributes his complete social isolation to God, emphasizing that even close family and acquaintances have turned away.
- Key words: hirchik (Hiphil causative, God actively removes); akh (emphatic 'surely'); yoda' (those who know intimately, 'acquaintances').
- Main debate: Is Job theologically accurate to blame God, or is he speaking from raw anguish? Commentators differ on whether this is correct theology or part of lament's freedom.
- Theological theme: Divine sovereignty extends over human relationships; suffering often strips away human support to drive us toward God alone.
- Best use: Preached as part of the arc to Job 19:25 (the Redeemer); also a model for honest lament in pastoral care.
Translation Comparison
BSB Berean Standard Bible 2020
He has removed my brothers from me; my acquaintances have abandoned me.
WEB World English Bible 2000
“He has put my brothers far from me. My acquaintances are wholly estranged from me.
KJV King James Version 1769
He hath put my brethren far from me, and mine acquaintance are verily estranged from me.
ASV American Standard Version 1901
He hath put my brethren far from me, And mine acquaintance are wholly estranged from me.
YLT Young's Literal Translation 1898
My brethren from me He hath put far off, And mine acquaintances surely Have been estranged from me.
Darby Darby Bible 1890
He hath put my brethren far from me, and mine acquaintance are quite estranged from me.
Douay-Rheims Douay-Rheims Bible 1899
He hath put my brethren far from me, and my acquaintance like strangers have departed from me.
Translations in other languages (10 available)
Hizo alejar de mí mis hermanos, y positivamente se extrañaron de mí mis conocidos.
Ele afastou meus irmãos para longe de mim; e os que me conheciam agora me estranham.
Il a éloigné de moi mes frères,
Er hat meine Brüder fern von mir getan, und meine Verwandten sind mir fremd geworden.
Mijn broeders heeft Hij verre van mij gedaan; en die mij kennen, zekerlijk, zij zijn van mij vervreemd.
Egli ha allontanato da me i miei fratelli, i miei conoscenti si son del tutto alienati da me.
Braci moich odemnie oddalił, a znajomi moi stronią odemnie.
Братьев моих Он удалил от меня, и знающие меня чуждаются меня.
他把我的弟兄 隔 在遠處，使我所認識的 全然 與我 生疏。
He has taken my brothers far away from me; they have seen my fate and have become strange to me.
Verse in Context
Original Language (Biblical Hebrew)
Old Testament · Biblical Hebrew · Job 19:13
Source: STEPBible TAGNT/TEHB (CC-BY 4.0). Click or tap a morphology code to see the full parsing.
Scholars' Consensus
Commentators across traditions agree that Job makes a startling claim: God himself has driven away his brothers and turned his acquaintances into strangers. Barnes calls this 'the crown of all his woes', not physical pain but the loss of every human support. Keil and Delitzsch describe it as a result of the siege of God’s wrath, leaving Job isolated like a besieged city. Cambridge adds that 'there is something more breaking to the heart in the turning away of men than in the severest sufferings.' Gill notes the emphatic Hebrew word akh ('surely') highlights the completeness of the estrangement. Wesley bluntly says we must see God’s hand in the slights and unkindnesses from friends. This is not merely a complaint about friends; it is a theological statement about God’s sovereignty over every sphere of life, including relationships. The consensus is clear: Job’s social abandonment is not accidental but divinely allowed, and he names it as such.
How settled is the interpretation?
Interpretive difficulty: Medium
Main views:
- Job expresses correct theology: God’s sovereignty extends over all relationships; Job acknowledges God’s hand in every affliction (Barnes, Wesley).
- Job speaks from anguish, not doctrine: Job may be overstating God’s role in his misery; the friends’ withdrawal is human choice, not divine causation (some modern pastoral readings).
What is clear: Job experiences complete social abandonment and explicitly connects it to God’s action in his life, whether as direct sovereignty or permitted trial.
What Scholars Agree and Debate
| Topic | Agreed | Debated |
|---|---|---|
| Job’s attribution of social distance to God | All commentators note Job actively sees God as the cause of estrangement. | Some read it as accurate theology (God is sovereign over all). Others see it as part of Job’s passion, possibly overstating God’s direct agency in human choices. |
| Meaning of 'brethren' (ach) | Includes literal brothers and possibly close relatives or clan members. | Barnes says it is impossible to determine strictly; some take it as literal siblings, others as broader kinship group. |
| The role of the emphatic 'surely' (akh) | It underscores the completeness of the estrangement. | Whether it emphasizes Job’s certainty (theology) or his bitterness (emotion) is a matter of emphasis. |
| Relationship to Christ’s abandonment | The verse foreshadows the experience of Christ, as noted by Jamieson-Fausset-Brown and cross-references (Psalm 69:8). | How direct a prophecy: Jamieson-Fausset-Brown calls it 'unconscious' prefiguring; others see a general typological pattern rather than direct prediction. |
Historical & Cultural Context
In the ancient Near East, family and kin were the primary sources of identity, protection and support. To be cut off from them was to lose one’s place in the world. When someone suffered severe and unexplained calamity, as Job did, the community often interpreted it as divine punishment. Friends and family would distance themselves to avoid being associated with God’s wrath, or to avoid ritual impurity, Job’s skin disease would have made him ceremonially unclean.
But Job goes deeper. He does not simply observe that his friends have left. He says God has put them far from him. The verb hirchik is Hiphil (causative), meaning God actively removes them. This fits the siege imagery of verse 12: God’s troops build a ramp around his tent, and the result is that no human comfort reaches him. The Hebrew word order places the object first, 'My brothers from me he has put far away', emphasizing the personal loss before the agent.
This cultural backdrop helps us see that Job’s cry is not paranoid or overly dramatic. It reflects a known pattern in his world. The same pain echoes in Psalms 38:11, 'My lovers and my friends stand aloof from my plague,' and Psalms 88:8, 'You have taken my friends from me.' Job’s situation is archetypal. For the reader, this verse invites acknowledgment that seasons of isolation may feel like divine action, and that even then God holds our relationships in hands we cannot see.
Textual Notes
The consulted sources note no significant variants for Job 19:13. The Masoretic Text is stable, and the verse reads consistently across manuscripts.
Reception History
Christians have seen this verse as prefiguring Christ’s abandonment by his disciples and his cry of forsakenness (Psalm 69:8-9). The early church read Job’s honesty as a model for lament during persecution. Medieval commentators often treated the verse as part of Job’s patient endurance, while modern readers highlight its raw honesty about feeling cut off from community. Hymns such as 'O For a Thousand Tongues' have drawn on the theme of Christ’s isolation. In contemporary pastoral care, Job 19:13 is used to validate the experience of those who feel abandoned even by family and church.
Preaching This Verse
Three-point outline
- The scope of abandonment: Job loses not only brothers and acquaintances (v.13), but relatives, servants, his wife, even young children (vv.14, 19). The isolation is total.
- The source of abandonment: Job attributes the estrangement to God. The Hiphil verb hirchik makes God the active cause. This is a radical claim about sovereignty.
- The response: Job does not stay in despair. His honesty opens the door to a breakthrough: the proclamation of a living Redeemer (v.25).
Five-point outline
- The social dimension of suffering is often the hardest part.
- Job names God as the cause, an act of faith that God is in control, even of relationships.
- Every relationship, no matter how intimate, can be strained by prolonged pain.
- Job’s isolation prepares him for a deeper trust; he will soon declare hope.
- We are called to lament honestly and to trust that God sees our loneliness.
Illustration hooks
- The loneliness of a hospital waiting room where old friends stop visiting after the first week.
- The strain a family experiences when one member has a chronic illness; conversations become awkward.
- The feeling of being invisible in a room full of people after a public failure or moral fall.
Questions your congregation is asking
- Why do some friends abandon us when we need them most?
- Is it biblical to blame God for the way others treat us?
- How can I maintain faith when I feel completely alone, even from family?
Leading a Discussion
Job’s words in verse 13 are unsettling. He names God as the one who has driven away his brothers. This challenges us to consider where we see God in our most painful social experiences. Before discussing, read Job 19:13, 20 as a group. Let the weight of his isolation sink in. Sit with Job’s perspective before evaluating it.
Discussion questions
- Observation: List every person or group Job mentions being estranged from in verses 13, 19.
- What does the Hebrew emphatic akh ('surely') add to the sense of abandonment?
- Why do you think Job specifically attributes this to God rather than to human choices?
- How does this passage connect with Jesus’ experience of abandonment by his disciples (Matthew 26:56)?
- In what ways have you experienced social withdrawal during a time of suffering?
- Is it ever right to say 'God has done this' when people hurt us? Why or why not? What does Job teach us about honesty in prayer?
- How does the hope of verse 25 fit with the despair of verse 13? What does that tell us about the shape of faithful lament?
Word Study
The key original-language words in this verse. Select any word for its full lexicon entry — meaning, every occurrence in Scripture, and related words.
Cross-References
Source: Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (TSK, public domain)
| Job 6:21 | For now you are nothing. You see a terror, and are afraid. |
| Job 6:23 | or, ‘Deliver me from the adversary’s hand’? or, ‘Redeem me from the hand of the oppressors’? |
| Job 16:7 | But now, God, you have surely worn me out. You have made all my company desolate. |
| Psalms 31:11 | Because of all my adversaries I have become utterly contemptible to my neighbors, a horror to my acquaintances. Those who saw me on the street fled from me. |
| Psalms 38:11 | My lovers and my friends stand aloof from my plague. My kinsmen stand far away. |
| Psalms 69:8 | I have become a stranger to my brothers, an alien to my mother’s children. |
| Psalms 69:20 | Reproach has broken my heart, and I am full of heaviness. I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; for comforters, but I found none. |
| Psalms 88:8 | You have taken my friends from me. You have made me an abomination to them. I am confined, and I can’t escape. |
Interlinear and lexical data from STEPBible (CC BY 4.0). Cross-reference data from OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0). Commentaries are public domain.
For personal reflection
Read the devotional page — prayer, application, and "for families"
What the Commentators Say
9 public-domain commentaries, condensed into plain language.
Barnes' Notes on the Bible Protestant 1832
Barnes highlights that Job sees the estrangement of his brothers and friends as the crowning point of his suffering, a fresh calamity he had not previously considered. He notes the uncertainty over whether "brethren" means literal family or close companions, but the key observation is the universal pattern of friends vanishing when hardship comes and leaving the sufferer completely alone.
Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges Anglican 1880
Job feels deep pain because people reject him completely. He cries out for their pity even though they turn away from him.
Geneva Bible Notes Reformed 1599
The Geneva note highlights that Job attributes the estrangement of his relatives and acquaintances directly to God's action. Job
Gill's Exposition of the Bible Baptist 1748
Gill emphasizes that Job sees his brothers' and friends' distance as God's direct action against him, as if treating him like an enemy by cutting off human comfort. He notes these same relatives later showed love, but Job credits
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Commentary Protestant 1871
Jamieson Fausset Brown notes that the word for brothers refers only to close kin rather than casual friends. He also says the word for turning away means disgust and that Job’s words here predict Jesus’ abandonment.
Keil & Delitzsch OT Commentary Protestant 1876
Keil-Delitzsch sees Job describing himself as a city under siege by God's regular troops, not random marauders. The poet breaks down the social isolation into precise circles: blood relatives, intimate friends, and even household servants who owe him shelter all now treat him as a complete outsider.
Lange's Commentary Reformed 1857
Lange emphasizes that Job's soaring hope in a living Redeemer springs directly from his utter desolation—forsaken by God and every human relation. This is no hope for earthly restoration but a confident expectation of vindication after death, a spiritual beholding of God that transcends the grave.
Matthew Henry's Commentary Reformed/Presbyterian 1710
Henry notes that Job describes God’s wrath as a burning flame that causes him intense pain. He also says that God counts Job as one of his enemies because of that wrath.
Wesley's Explanatory Notes Methodist/Wesleyan 1754
Wesley notes that suffering from friends is just as evidence of God’s hand as suffering from enemies. This holds true for all injuries one endures.