His troops come together And build up their road against me; They encamp all around my tent.
Parallel translations
- WEB His troops come on together, build a siege ramp against me, and encamp around my tent.
- KJV His troops come together, and raise up their way against me, and encamp round about my tabernacle.
- BSB His troops advance together; they construct a ramp against me and encamp around my tent.
- NASB “His troops come together And build up their way against me And camp around my tent.
- NLT His troops advance. They build up roads to attack me. They camp all around my tent.
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 pictures God's troops besieging him, building a ramp and encamping around his tent. He feels assaulted by an overwhelming divine army.
Overview
Using military imagery, Job depicts himself as a small city under full siege by God's forces, surrounded and cut off. The metaphor intensifies his sense of being overpowered and inescapably targeted. Such language voices the terror of feeling God himself is against us, a dread answered in the cross where God's just wrath was borne by Christ on behalf of his people.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 5
- Job 30:12On my right hand rise the rabble. They thrust aside my feet, They cast up against me their ways of destruction.
- Job 16:13His archers surround me. He splits my kidneys apart, and does not spare. He pours out my gall on the ground.
- Job 16:11God delivers me to the ungodly, and casts me into the hands of the wicked.
- Isa 10:5–6Alas Assyrian, the rod of my anger, the staff in whose hand is my indignation!
- Isa 51:23and I will put it into the hand of those who afflict you, who have said to your soul, ‘Bow down, that we may walk over you;’ and you have laid your back as the ground, like a street to those who walk over.”
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 19:12 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.