I could also speak like you if you were in my place; I could heap up words against you and shake my head at you.
Parallel translations
- WEB I also could speak as you do. If your soul were in my soul’s place, I could join words together against you, and shake my head at you,
- KJV I 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.
- NKJV I also could speak as you do, If your soul were in my soul’s place. I could heap up words against you, And shake my head at you;
- NASB “I too could speak like you, If only I were in your place. I could compose words against you And shake my head at you.
- NLT I could say the same things if you were in my place. I could spout off criticism and shake my head at you.
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 says he too could speak against them and mock them if their positions were reversed. He highlights how easy it is to condemn another's suffering.
Overview
Job points out that, were the friends in his place, he could just as readily heap up words and shake his head in scorn. He exposes the cheapness of their criticism from a position of comfort. The verse rebukes self-righteous judgment of the afflicted and implicitly calls for the empathy that puts oneself in another's place.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 17
- Ps 109:25I am an object of scorn to my accusers; when they see me, they shake their heads.
- Ps 22:7All who see me mock me; they sneer and shake their heads:
- Lam 2:15All who pass by clap their hands at you in scorn. They hiss and shake their heads at the Daughter of Jerusalem: “Is this the city that was called the perfection of beauty, the joy of all the earth?”
- Jer 18:16They have made their land a desolation, a perpetual object of scorn; all who pass by will be appalled and shake their heads.
- Matt 7:12In everything, then, do to others as you would have them do to you. For this is the essence of the Law and the Prophets.
- Rom 12:15Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep.
- 2 Kgs 19:21This is the word that the LORD has spoken against him: ‘The Virgin Daughter of Zion despises you and mocks you; the Daughter of Jerusalem shakes her head behind you.
- Job 6:14A despairing man should have the kindness of his friend, even if he forsakes the fear of the Almighty.
- Prov 10:19When words are many, sin is unavoidable, but he who restrains his lips is wise.
- Job 35:16So Job opens his mouth in vain and multiplies words without knowledge.”
- 1 Cor 12:26If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.
- Matt 27:39–40And those who passed by heaped abuse on Him, shaking their heads
- Job 6:2–5“If only my grief could be weighed and placed with my calamity on the scales.
- Zeph 2:15This carefree city that dwells securely, that thinks to herself: “I am it, and there is none besides me,” what a ruin she has become, a resting place for beasts. Everyone who passes by her hisses and shakes his fist.
- Eccl 10:14Yet the fool multiplies words. No one knows what is coming, and who can tell him what will come after him?
- Job 11:2“Should this stream of words go unanswered and such a speaker be vindicated?
- Ps 44:14You have made us a byword among the nations, a laughingstock among the peoples.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Commentaries & study tools
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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 16:4 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.