Job 19:24

The history and book of Job are judged to be very early, and he speaks not only of writing but of a book. This refers to his words being engraved on a rock and filled in with lead.

He longed for his words to be kept in a book, or even carved to last on the rock, as kings and great men did in those days. People have since found such rock records and read them. Yet his desire came true in a more wonderful way than he imagined: his words stand in the inspired Scriptures, which outlive and outlast everything else.

The plea for pity and sympathy might well move hearts of stone, but Job's words seem to fall on unhearing ears. It was their claim that God's hand had been upon him — for his sin. Job asks: will they persecute him as God was doing? What an awful charge! Will they feed madly on his flesh, never satisfied? Such injustice makes him almost frantic. He longs that his words — charging them, and God — were written, engraved in the rock forever, so they could never be erased.

At this point Job longs for his words to be written where no one could erase them (vv. 23-24). He was sure he was telling the truth. In fact, what he has said is inscribed in the Word of God for eternity. That lasts longer than rock engraved with an iron pen, with lead set into the letters. Job, however, will not consider all those words true for eternity. After this he learned that God was not a persecutor at all. He was One who in everything sought the greatest good of His servant.

And then, in the middle of all these laments, he speaks those magnificent words of faith. He says, "I know that my Redeemer lives." But this was the very God he had just been charging with injustice! How good it is to see Job's faith in all this turmoil, turning to the very One he was speaking against! Truly these — not his own protests of innocence — are words worth engraving on the lasting rock.

The truth of God's intervention at the end flashes so brightly before his soul that he wishes his words written, inscribed in the book, better still, engraved with a pen of iron and with lead on a rock forever. And no wonder. He knows his Kinsman-Redeemer lives.

And what fervency this is! The Holy Spirit enables Job to set his seal to all this precious confession of his faith. Job would have everyone know it, and every generation of them. He would publish it far and wide. He would tell it out without any fear that he might one day have to cancel a letter of it. He would engrave it for eternity and set it in lead in the rock — that he knew his Redeemer!