If you say, ‘Let us persecute him, since the root of the matter lies with him,’
Parallel translations
- WEB If you say, ‘How we will persecute him!’ because the root of the matter is found in me,
- KJV But ye should say, Why persecute we him, seeing the root of the matter is found in me?
- NKJV If you should say, ‘How shall we persecute him?’— Since the root of the matter is found in me,
- NASB “If you say, ‘How shall we persecute him?’ And ‘What pretext for a case against him can we find?’
- NLT “How dare you go on persecuting me, saying, ‘It’s his own fault’?
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 warns the friends who plot to persecute him, claiming the fault lies in him. He turns to caution them about their own conduct.
Overview
Job rebukes his friends for scheming to hound him, supposing 'the root of the matter' (the blame) is found in him. He shifts from his confession of hope to a sober warning about their treatment of him. The verse exposes how dangerous it is to persecute the innocent, setting up the warning of judgment in the following verse.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 3
- Job 19:22Why do you persecute me as God does? Will you never get enough of my flesh?
- 1 Kgs 14:13All Israel will mourn for him and bury him. For this is the only one belonging to Jeroboam who will receive a proper burial, because only in him has the LORD, the God of Israel, found any good in the house of Jeroboam.
- Ps 69:26For they persecute the one You struck and recount the pain of those You wounded.
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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 19:28 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.