“You who tear yourself in your anger— Should the earth be abandoned for your sake, Or the rock moved from its place?
Parallel translations
- WEB You who tear yourself in your anger, shall the earth be forsaken for you? Or shall the rock be removed out of its place?
- KJV He teareth himself in his anger: shall the earth be forsaken for thee? and shall the rock be removed out of his place?
- BSB You who tear yourself in anger—should the earth be forsaken on your account, or the rocks be moved from their place?
- NKJV You who tear yourself in anger, Shall the earth be forsaken for you? Or shall the rock be removed from its place?
- NLT You may tear out your hair in anger, but will that destroy the earth? Will it make the rocks tremble?
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
Bildad accuses Job of tearing himself in anger and asks if the world should bend to his complaint. He charges Job with self-destructive pride.
Overview
Bildad pictures Job as raging against himself and implies that Job's protest would require the moral order of the universe to be overturned for his sake. He defends the fixed law of retribution as unshakable as the rocks. Yet the book reveals that God's ways are larger than such rigid formulas, and that the sufferer's anguish is not mere self-willed rebellion.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 11
- Job 14:18“But the mountain falling comes to nothing. The rock is removed out of its place;
- 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 5:2For resentment kills the foolish man, and jealousy kills the simple.
- Job 13:14Why should I take my flesh in my teeth, and put my life in my hand?
- Job 40:8Will you even annul my judgment? Will you condemn me, that you may be justified?
- Matt 24:35Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
- Isa 54:10For the mountains may depart, and the hills be removed; but my loving kindness will not depart from you, and my covenant of peace will not be removed,” says Yahweh who has mercy on you.
- Mark 9:18and wherever it seizes him, it throws him down, and he foams at the mouth, and grinds his teeth, and wastes away. I asked your disciples to cast it out, and they weren’t able.”
- Ezek 9:9Then he said to me, “The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceedingly great, and the land is full of blood, and the city full of perversion; for they say, ‘Yahweh has forsaken the land, and Yahweh doesn’t see.’
- Luke 9:39Behold, a spirit takes him, he suddenly cries out, and it convulses him so that he foams, and it hardly departs from him, bruising him severely.
- Jonah 4:9God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the vine?” He said, “I am right to be angry, even to death.”
Themes, concepts, people & topics
Resources, by level
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 18:4 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.