“His anger has torn me and hunted me down, He has gnashed at me with His teeth; My enemy glares at me.
Parallel translations
- WEB He has torn me in his wrath, and persecuted me. He has gnashed on me with his teeth. My adversary sharpens his eyes on me.
- KJV He teareth me in his wrath, who hateth me: he gnasheth upon me with his teeth; mine enemy sharpeneth his eyes upon me.
- BSB His anger has torn me and opposed me; He gnashes His teeth at me. My adversary pierces me with His eyes.
- NKJV He tears me in His wrath, and hates me; He gnashes at me with His teeth; My adversary sharpens His gaze on me.
- NLT God hates me and angrily tears me apart. He snaps his teeth at me and pierces me with his eyes.
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 describes God as an adversary who has torn him in wrath and fixed a hostile gaze on him. He feels assaulted by the One he serves.
Overview
In vivid imagery Job pictures God tearing, gnashing, and sharpening his eyes against him like an enemy. This is the agonized language of a man who cannot reconcile God's apparent hostility with his own innocence. Such raw lament, voiced honestly to God, is permitted in Scripture and finds its deepest echo in Christ's cry of forsakenness (Mark 15:34).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 14
- Lam 2:16All your enemies have opened their mouth wide against you. They hiss and gnash the teeth. They say, “We have swallowed her up. Certainly this is the day that we looked for. We have found it. We have seen it.”
- Ps 35:16Like the profane mockers in feasts, they gnashed their teeth at me.
- Job 13:24Why hide you your face, and hold me for your enemy?
- Job 19:11He has also kindled his wrath against me. He counts me among his adversaries.
- Hos 6:1“Come, and let us return to Yahweh; for he has torn us to pieces, and he will heal us; he has injured us, and he will bind up our wounds.
- Ps 37:12The wicked plots against the just, and gnashes at him with his teeth.
- Job 10:16–17If my head is held high, you hunt me like a lion. Again you show yourself powerful to me.
- Job 18:4You who tear yourself in your anger, shall the earth be forsaken for you? Or shall the rock be removed out of its place?
- Acts 7:54Now when they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed at him with their teeth.
- Job 13:27You also put my feet in the stocks, and mark all my paths. You set a bound to the soles of my feet,
- Lam 3:10He is to me as a bear lying in wait, as a lion in secret places.
- Mic 7:8Don’t rejoice against me, my enemy. When I fall, I will arise. When I sit in darkness, Yahweh will be a light to me.
- Ps 50:22“Now consider this, you who forget God, lest I tear you into pieces, and there be no one to deliver.
- Hos 5:14For I will be to Ephraim like a lion, and like a young lion to the house of Judah. I myself will tear in pieces and go away. I will carry off, and there will be no one to deliver.
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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 16:9 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.