Job 19:26 - Exposition

And though after my skin worms destroy this body . The supposed ellipsis of "worms" is improbable, as is also that of "body." Translate, and after my skin has been thus destroyed— "thus" meaning, "as you see it before your eyes." Yet in my flesh shall I see God ; literally, from my flesh— scarcely, as Renan takes it, "without my flesh," or "away from my flesh"—"prive de ma chair;" but rather, "from the standpoint of my flesh "—"in my body," not "out of my body"—shall I see God. This may be taken merely as a prophecy of the theophany recorded in ch. 38-42. (see especially Job 42:5 ). But the nexus with verse 25, and the expressions there used—"at the last," and "he shall stand up over my dust"—fully justify the traditional exegesis, which sees in the passage an avowal by Job of his confidence that he will see God "from his body" at the resurrection.