May God give them a bellyful of trouble. May God rain down his anger upon them.
Parallel translations
- WEB When he is about to fill his belly, God will cast the fierceness of his wrath on him. It will rain on him while he is eating.
- KJV When he is about to fill his belly, God shall cast the fury of his wrath upon him, and shall rain it upon him while he is eating.
- BSB When he has filled his stomach, God will vent His fury upon him, raining it down on him as he eats.
- NKJV When he is about to fill his stomach, God will cast on him the fury of His wrath, And will rain it on him while he is eating.
- NASB “When he fills his belly, God will send His fierce anger on him And rain it on him while he is eating.
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
When the wicked man is about to satisfy himself, God rains down the fierceness of his wrath upon him. Divine judgment falls in the midst of his indulgence.
Overview
Zophar portrays God pouring out burning wrath on the wicked man just as he reaches to fill his appetite, the judgment 'raining' down upon him. The image attributes the downfall directly to God's righteous anger against evil. It affirms the seriousness of divine wrath against sin, a wrath from which the gospel offers refuge through the One who bore it for sinners.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 8
- Ps 78:30–31They didn’t turn from their cravings. Their food was yet in their mouths,
- Num 11:33While the meat was still between their teeth, before it was chewed, Yahweh’s anger burned against the people, and Yahweh struck the people with a very great plague.
- Isa 21:4My heart flutters. Horror has frightened me. The twilight that I desired has been turned into trembling for me.
- Ps 11:6On the wicked he will rain blazing coals; fire, sulfur, and scorching wind shall be the portion of their cup.
- Exod 9:23Moses stretched out his rod toward the heavens, and Yahweh sent thunder, hail, and lightning flashed down to the earth. Yahweh rained hail on the land of Egypt.
- Gen 19:24Then Yahweh rained on Sodom and on Gomorrah sulfur and fire from Yahweh out of the sky.
- Luke 12:17–20He reasoned within himself, saying, ‘What will I do, because I don’t have room to store my crops?’
- Mal 2:2If you will not listen, and if you will not lay it to heart, to give glory to my name,” says Yahweh of Armies, “then will I send the curse on you, and I will curse your blessings. Indeed, I have cursed them already, because you do not lay it to heart.
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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 20:23 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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