My friends scorn me: but mine eye poureth out tears unto God.
Parallel translations
- WEB My friends scoff at me. My eyes pour out tears to God,
- BSB My friends are my scoffers as my eyes pour out tears to God.
- NKJV My friends scorn me; My eyes pour out tears to God.
- NASB “My friends are my scoffers; My eye weeps to God,
- NLT My friends scorn me, but I pour out my tears to God.
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's friends scorn him, so he pours out his tears to God. He turns from human contempt to divine audience.
Overview
As his companions mock rather than comfort, Job directs his weeping eyes upward to God. He finds in God the one hearer worthy of his grief. This movement from rejection by men to appeal to God models how the suffering believer takes refuge in the Lord when human help fails, trusting that God hears the cry of the afflicted (Psalm 34:17).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 8
- Heb 5:7Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared;
- Ps 142:2I poured out my complaint before him; I shewed before him my trouble.
- Job 12:4–5I am as one mocked of his neighbour, who calleth upon God, and he answereth him: the just upright man is laughed to scorn.
- Luke 6:11–12And they were filled with madness; and communed one with another what they might do to Jesus.
- Job 16:4I also could speak as ye do: if your soul were in my soul’s stead, I could heap up words against you, and shake mine head at you.
- Ps 109:4For my love they are my adversaries: but I give myself unto prayer.
- Job 17:2Are there not mockers with me? and doth not mine eye continue in their provocation?
- Hos 12:4–5Yea, he had power over the angel, and prevailed: he wept, and made supplication unto him: he found him in Bethel, and there he spake with us;
Themes, concepts, people & topics
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.
Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.
Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
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 16:20 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.