Job 19:14 Meaning and Explanation

The catalog of loss continues. Kinsfolk who should have stood by him have failed; familiar friends, the intimate companions of better days, have forgotten him altogether. Those nearest by blood and by affection have all withdrawn, and Job feels erased from the memory of those he loved.

To be forgotten is its own kind of death. Yet Scripture sets against this the steadfast faithfulness of God, who declares that even if a mother could forget her nursing child, he will not forget his own; he has graven us on the palms of his hands. When human bonds fail, the covenant love of the Lord remains, and the forgotten are held fast in a memory that never lets them go.