“I am a joke to my friends, The one who called on God and He answered him; The just and blameless man is a joke.
Parallel translations
- WEB I am like one who is a joke to his neighbor, I, who called on God, and he answered. The just, the blameless man is a joke.
- KJV I am as one mocked of his neighbour, who calleth upon God, and he answereth him: the just upright man is laughed to scorn.
- BSB I am a laughingstock to my friends, though I called on God, and He answered. The righteous and upright man is a laughingstock.
- NKJV “Iam one mocked by his friends, Who called on God, and He answered him, The just and blameless who is ridiculed.
- NLT Yet my friends laugh at me, for I call on God and expect an answer. I am a just and blameless man, yet they laugh at me.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Job laments becoming a laughingstock to his neighbors, though he called on God and was answered. He feels mocked despite his righteousness.
Overview
Job grieves that he, a righteous man who prayed and was heard, is now ridiculed in his affliction. His complaint that the blameless are scorned anticipates the experience of the righteous Sufferer to come. Christ, the truly blameless one, was likewise mocked while He called on the Father, sanctifying the trial of the unjustly derided (Psalm 22:7-8; Matthew 27:39-43).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 19
- Job 30:1“But now those who are younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I would have disdained to put with my sheep dogs.
- Ps 91:15He will call on me, and I will answer him. I will be with him in trouble. I will deliver him, and honor him.
- Job 17:6“But he has made me a byword of the people. They spit in my face.
- Job 21:3Allow me, and I also will speak; After I have spoken, mock on.
- Job 17:2Surely there are mockers with me. My eye dwells on their provocation.
- Ps 22:7–8All those who see me mock me. They insult me with their lips. They shake their heads, saying,
- Job 16:10They have gaped on me with their mouth. They have struck me on the cheek reproachfully. They gather themselves together against me.
- Jer 33:3‘Call to me, and I will answer you, and will show you great things, and difficult, which you don’t know.’
- Acts 17:32Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked; but others said, “We want to hear you again concerning this.”
- Mic 7:7But as for me, I will look to Yahweh. I will wait for the God of my salvation. My God will hear me.
- Prov 14:2He who walks in his uprightness fears Yahweh, but he who is perverse in his ways despises him.
- Heb 11:36Others were tried by mocking and scourging, yes, moreover by bonds and imprisonment.
- Ps 35:16Like the profane mockers in feasts, they gnashed their teeth at me.
- Job 16:20My friends scoff at me. My eyes pour out tears to God,
- Mark 5:40They ridiculed him. But he, having put them all out, took the father of the child, her mother, and those who were with him, and went in where the child was lying.
- Matt 27:29They braided a crown of thorns and put it on his head, and a reed in his right hand; and they kneeled down before him, and mocked him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!”
- Job 11:3Should your boastings make men hold their peace? When you mock, shall no man make you ashamed?
- Job 6:29Please return. Let there be no injustice. Yes, return again. My cause is righteous.
- Luke 16:14The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, also heard all these things, and they scoffed at him.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
Job's cry for a mediator who can lay his hand on both God and man, and his confidence that 'my Redeemer lives' and will stand on the earth, reaches forward to Jesus the living Redeemer.
How Job 12:4 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.