“Why do You hide Your face And consider me Your enemy?
Parallel translations
- WEB Why hide you your face, and hold me for your enemy?
- KJV Wherefore hidest thou thy face, and holdest me for thine enemy?
- BSB Why do You hide Your face and consider me as Your enemy?
- NKJV Why do You hide Your face, And regard me as Your enemy?
- NLT Why do you turn away from me? Why do you treat me as your enemy?
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 asks why God hides His face and treats him as an enemy. The sense of God's hostility is his deepest pain.
Overview
Job cries, 'Why hide you your face, and hold me for your enemy?' The withdrawal of God's favor grieves him more than his losses. Believers can echo this anguish, yet the gospel assures that in Christ God's face is turned toward His people in grace, never finally hidden from those He loves.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 17
- Job 19:11He has also kindled his wrath against me. He counts me among his adversaries.
- Lam 2:5The Lord has become as an enemy, he has swallowed up Israel; He has swallowed up all her palaces, he has destroyed his strongholds; He has multiplied in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.
- Ps 13:1For the Chief Musician. A Psalm by David. How long, Yahweh? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?
- Ps 44:24Why do you hide your face, and forget our affliction and our oppression?
- Isa 8:17I will wait for Yahweh, who hides his face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for him.
- Job 33:10Behold, he finds occasions against me. He counts me for his enemy.
- Deut 32:20He said, “I will hide my face from them. I will see what their end will be; for they are a very perverse generation, children in whom is no faithfulness.
- Ps 88:14Yahweh, why do you reject my soul? Why do you hide your face from me?
- 1 Sam 28:16Samuel said, “Why then do you ask me, since Yahweh has departed from you and has become your adversary?
- Ps 10:1Why do you stand far off, Yahweh? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?
- Job 16:9He has torn me in his wrath, and persecuted me. He has gnashed on me with his teeth. My adversary sharpens his eyes on me.
- Job 30:21You have turned to be cruel to me. With the might of your hand you persecute me.
- Job 31:35oh that I had one to hear me! Behold, here is my signature! Let the Almighty answer me! Let the accuser write my indictment!
- 2 Th 3:15Don’t count him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother.
- Ps 77:6–9I remember my song in the night. I consider in my own heart; my spirit diligently inquires:
- Job 29:2–3“Oh that I were as in the months of old, as in the days when God watched over me;
- Job 10:2I will tell God, ‘Do not condemn me. Show me why you contend with me.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
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 13:24 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.