But reach out and take away his health, and he will surely curse you to your face!”
Parallel translations
- WEB But stretch out your hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will renounce you to your face.”
- KJV But put forth thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse thee to thy face.
- BSB But stretch out Your hand and strike his flesh and bones, and he will surely curse You to Your face.”
- NKJV But stretch out Your hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will surely curse You to Your face!”
- NASB However, reach out with Your hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh; he will curse You to Your face!”
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
Satan urges God to strike Job's own body, predicting he will then curse Him. The test escalates to personal suffering.
Overview
Now Satan demands that affliction reach Job's "bone and flesh," certain that physical agony will break his faith. The accusation presses the same lie that no one loves God for His own sake. The narrative will again refute it, displaying a faith that endures even bodily torment by God's sustaining grace.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 10
- Job 1:11But stretch out your hand now, and touch all that he has, and he will renounce you to your face.”
- Job 1:5It was so, when the days of their feasting had run their course, that Job sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, “It may be that my sons have sinned, and renounced God in their hearts.” Job did so continually.
- Job 19:20–21My bones stick to my skin and to my flesh. I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.
- Lev 24:15You shall speak to the children of Israel, saying, ‘Whoever curses his God shall bear his sin.
- Ps 39:10Remove your scourge away from me. I am overcome by the blow of your hand.
- Ps 32:3–4When I kept silence, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long.
- Job 2:9Then his wife said to him, “Do you still maintain your integrity? Renounce God, and die.”
- Ps 38:2–7For your arrows have pierced me, your hand presses hard on me.
- Isa 8:21They will pass through it, very distressed and hungry; and it will happen that when they are hungry, they will worry, and curse by their king and by their God. They will turn their faces upward,
- 1 Chr 21:17David said to God, “Isn’t it I who commanded the people to be counted? It is even I who have sinned and done very wickedly; but these sheep, what have they done? Please let your hand, O Yahweh my God, be against me, and against my father’s house; but not against your people, that they should be plagued.”
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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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 2:5 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.