Job’s Faith in the Resurrection
JOB 19:26 reads thus: "And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God." The word "worms" is not in the original, and the reading of it is very awkward at best. Whether it should be read, "After my skin, worms destroy this body," or, "After my skin worms destroy this body," is questionable with many. We have heard it read both ways. What does Job mean? In the first place, he does not use the word "worms" at all, nor is there a necessity for it. What he does mean is perhaps best expressed by Boothroyd’s translation: "If after my skin this body be destroyed, yet in my flesh shall I see God." That this translation of this eminent Hebræist is correct is also evident from the circumstances. Job was afflicted with "sore boils from the sole of his foot to his crown." His skin was a putrid, diseased, decaying mass. But this does not limit the faith of the God-fearing Idumean. He says, "If after my skin [now already consumed] my body be destroyed [by the same disease or otherwise], yet in my flesh shall I see God," when he shall stand the latter day upon the earth. Then Christ will change the vile bodies of mortality and make them like his own. Phil. 3:21. This Job believed; and this he expressed.