Job 19:29
Be ye afraid of the sword: for wrath bringeth the punishments of the sword, that ye may know there is a judgment.
Be ye afraid of the sword,.... Not of the civil magistrate, nor of a foreign enemy, but of the avenging sword of divine justice; lest God should whet the glittering sword of his justice, and his hand should take hold of judgment, in order to avenge the wrongs of the innocent; unless the other should also be considered as his instruments:
for wrath bringeth the punishments of the sword, or "sins of the sword" {l}: the sense is, either that the wrath of men, in persecuting the people of God, puts them upon the commission of such sins as deserve to be punished with the sword, either of the civil magistrate, or of a foreign enemy, or of divine justice; or else the wrath of God brings on more punishments for their sins by means of the sword; and to this sense is the Targum,
"when God is angry for iniquities, he sends those that slay with the sword:''
that ye may know there is a judgment; that is executed in the world by the Judge of all the earth, who will do right; and that there is a future judgment after death, unto which everything in this world will be brought, when God will judge the world in righteousness by Christ, whom he has ordained to be Judge of quick and dead; and which will be a righteous judgment, that none can escape; and when, Job suggests, the controversy between him and his friends would be determined; and it would be then seen who was in the right, and who in the wrong; and unto which time he seems willing to refer his cause, and to have no more said about it; but his friends did not choose to take his advice; for Zophar the Naamathite starts up directly; and makes a reply, which is contained in the following chapter.
{l} brx twnwe "iniquitates gladii", Montanus, Schmidt, Michaelis; so Cocceius, Schultens.