You have bound me, and it has become a witness; my frailty rises up and testifies against me.
Parallel translations
- WEB You have shriveled me up. This is a witness against me. My leanness rises up against me. It testifies to my face.
- KJV And thou hast filled me with wrinkles, which is a witness against me: and my leanness rising up in me beareth witness to my face.
- NKJV You have shriveled me up, And it is a witness against me; My leanness rises up against me And bears witness to my face.
- NASB “And You have shriveled me up, It has become a witness; And my infirmity rises up against me, It testifies to my face.
- NLT As if to prove I have sinned, you’ve reduced me to skin and bones. My gaunt flesh testifies against 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's wasted, shriveled body is treated as if it testified against him. His very suffering is taken as evidence of guilt.
Overview
Job laments that his physical ruin and gauntness seem to stand up as witnesses accusing him before others. The friends read his affliction as proof of sin. This exposes the cruelty of judging the heart by outward circumstances, a misreading the whole book overturns and which finds its sharpest contradiction at the cross, where the sinless One suffered most.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 8
- Job 10:17You produce new witnesses against me and multiply Your anger toward me. Hardships assault me in wave after wave.
- Job 19:20My skin and flesh cling to my bones; I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.
- Ruth 1:21I went away full, but the LORD has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? After all, the LORD has testified against me, and the Almighty has afflicted me.”
- Ps 109:24My knees are weak from fasting, and my body grows lean and gaunt.
- Isa 10:16Therefore the Lord GOD of Hosts will send a wasting disease among Assyria’s stout warriors, and under his pomp will be kindled a fire like a burning flame.
- Isa 24:16From the ends of the earth we hear singing: “Glory to the Righteous One.” But I said, “I am wasting away! I am wasting away! Woe is me.” The treacherous betray; the treacherous deal in treachery.
- Eph 5:27and to present her to Himself as a glorious church, without stain or wrinkle or any such blemish, but holy and blameless.
- Ps 106:15So He granted their request, but sent a wasting disease upon them.
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 16:8 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.