Why do ye persecute me as God, and are not satisfied with my flesh?
Parallel translations
- WEB Why do you persecute me as God, and are not satisfied with my flesh?
- BSB Why do you persecute me as God does? Will you never get enough of my flesh?
- NKJV Why do you persecute me as God does, And are not satisfied with my flesh?
- NASB “Why do you persecute me as God does, And are not satisfied with my flesh?
- NLT Must you also persecute me, like God does? Haven’t you chewed me up enough?
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 asks why his friends persecute him as God does, never satisfied with tormenting his flesh. He accuses them of cruelty that mimics his suffering.
Overview
Job protests that his friends are adding their own relentless attacks to the affliction God has already sent, as if devouring his very flesh. He asks why they will not relent. The rebuke warns against compounding another's God-sent trial with human harshness, calling instead for the gentleness that reflects God's own compassion.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 9
- Ps 69:26For they persecute him whom thou hast smitten; and they talk to the grief of those whom thou hast wounded.
- Job 13:25Wilt thou break a leaf driven to and fro? and wilt thou pursue the dry stubble?
- Isa 51:23But I will put it into the hand of them that afflict thee; which have said to thy soul, Bow down, that we may go over: and thou hast laid thy body as the ground, and as the street, to them that went over.
- Mic 3:3Who also eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin from off them; and they break their bones, and chop them in pieces, as for the pot, and as flesh within the caldron.
- Job 2:5But put forth thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse thee to thy face.
- Job 10:16For it increaseth. Thou huntest me as a fierce lion: and again thou shewest thyself marvellous upon me.
- Job 16:11God hath delivered me to the ungodly, and turned me over into the hands of the wicked.
- Job 31:31If the men of my tabernacle said not, Oh that we had of his flesh! we cannot be satisfied.
- Job 16:13–14His archers compass me round about, he cleaveth my reins asunder, and doth not spare; he poureth out my gall upon the ground.
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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 19:22 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
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