Job 19:5 - Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Bible Comments

If, indeed, ye will magnify yourselves against me - This is connected with the next verse. The sense is, “all these calamities came from God. He has brought them upon me in a sudden and mysterious manner. In these circumstances you ought to have pity upon me; Job 19:21. Instead of magnifying yourselves against me, setting yourselves up as censors and judges, overwhelming me with reproaches and filling my mind with pain and anguish, you ought to show to me the sympathy of a friend.” The phrase, “magnify yourselves,” refers to the fact that they had assumed a tone of superiority and an authoritative manner, instead of showing the compassion due to a friend in affliction.

And plead against me my reproach - My calamities as a cause of reproach. You urge them as a proof of the displeasure of God, and you join in reproaching me as a hypocrite. Instead of this, you should have shown compassion to me as a man whom God had greatly afflicted.

Job 19:5

5 If indeed ye will magnify yourselves against me, and plead against me my reproach: