I Know that My Redeemer Liveth
1:
I KNOW THAT MY REDEEMER LIVETH Job’s statement of faith in extremis is “For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God” (Job 19:25–26). The conjectural uncertainty of the KJV rendering for v. 26 has not been completely solved by subsequent translations. (The translation “skin worms destroy this body” may arise in part from a later medieval notion that one’s living flesh already harbors the eggs of worms set to hatch at death and do their grisly work.)
In one of the most influential English commentaries on the passage Matthew Henry (1728) draws attention to the Hebrew word go‚el, translated Redeemer, showing that it properly indicates a “next of kin,” as in the kinsman-redeemer of the book of Ruth. He thus reads the passage as prefigurative of Christ, the “son of Man” as “near of kind to us, the next kinsman that is able to redeem; he has paid our debt” (Comm. on the Whole Bible, 3.109). These words are among the best known in the Bible, not only because of their use in funeral oration but also through their magnificent setting in Handel’s Messiah. Hence, for a character in Mulock’s John Halifax, as soon as the first musical phrase falls upon the ear, “That is Handel—‘I know that my Redeemer liveth’. Exquisitely she played it, the clear treble notes seeming to utter like a human voice the very words. …” at which the entire passage comes back, word by word, note by note (chap. 27). It is the triumphal christological note that Shaw’s St. Joan sounds: “My sword shall conquer yet: The sword that never struck a blow. Though men destroyed my body, yet in my soul have I seen God” (St. Joan, Epilogue).
See also resurrection.
Jeffrey, D. L. (1992). A Dictionary of biblical tradition in English literature. Grand Rapids, Mich.: W.B. Eerdmans.
