“How long will you torment me, and crush me with words?
Parallel translations
- KJV How long will ye vex my soul, and break me in pieces with words?
- BSB “How long will you torment me and crush me with your words?
- NKJV “How long will you torment my soul, And break me in pieces with words?
- NASB “How long will you torment me And crush me with words?
- NLT “How long will you torture me? How long will you try to crush me with your words?
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 how long his friends will torment him and crush him with their words. He feels battered not by comfort but by accusation.
Overview
Job protests that the men who came to console him have instead become instruments of pain, breaking his spirit with relentless speeches. His cry exposes how careless or condemning words can deepen a sufferer's wounds. The verse calls believers to the better way of bearing one another's burdens and speaking words that build up rather than crush (Galatians 6:2).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 15
- Ps 6:2–3Have mercy on me, Yahweh, for I am faint. Yahweh, heal me, for my bones are troubled.
- 2 Pet 2:7–8and delivered righteous Lot, who was very distressed by the lustful life of the wicked
- Ps 55:21His mouth was smooth as butter, but his heart was war. His words were softer than oil, yet they were drawn swords.
- Rev 6:10They cried with a loud voice, saying, “How long, Master, the holy and true, until you judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?”
- Ps 64:3who sharpen their tongue like a sword, and aim their arrows, deadly words,
- Ps 59:7Behold, they spew with their mouth. Swords are in their lips, “For”, they say, “who hears us?”
- Prov 18:21Death and life are in the power of the tongue; those who love it will eat its fruit.
- Job 8:2“How long will you speak these things? Shall the words of your mouth be a mighty wind?
- Job 27:2“As God lives, who has taken away my right, the Almighty, who has made my soul bitter
- Ps 42:10As with a sword in my bones, my adversaries reproach me, while they continually ask me, “Where is your God?”
- Jas 3:6–8And the tongue is a fire. The world of iniquity among our members is the tongue, which defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature, and is set on fire by Gehenna.
- Judg 16:16When she pressed him daily with her words, and urged him, his soul was troubled to death.
- Job 18:2“How long will you hunt for words? Consider, and afterwards we will speak.
- Prov 12:18There is one who speaks rashly like the piercing of a sword, but the tongue of the wise heals.
- Ps 13:1For the Chief Musician. A Psalm by David. How long, Yahweh? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?
Resources, by level
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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 19:2 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.