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This is the portion from God for a wicked man, The heritage appointed to him by God.”
Job 20:29 · New King James Version
Parallel translations
  • WEB This is the portion of a wicked man from God, the heritage appointed to him by God.”
  • KJV This is the portion of a wicked man from God, and the heritage appointed unto him by God.
  • BSB This is the wicked man’s portion from God, the inheritance God has appointed him.”
  • NASB “This is a wicked person’s portion from God, The inheritance decreed to him by God.”
  • NLT This is the reward that God gives the wicked. It is the inheritance decreed by God.”

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

Zophar concludes: this destruction is the wicked man's God-appointed portion and heritage. He insists such doom is God's settled decree for the wicked.

Overview

Zophar ends his speech by summarizing that the ruin he has described is the inheritance God assigns to the wicked. There is genuine truth that God appoints judgment for the unrepentant, yet Zophar wrongly applies it to Job as proof of guilt. The book will overturn his neat formula, even as Scripture affirms that the true and final portion of the godless rests in God's righteous judgment (Psalm 11:6).

Cross-references & the web

Cross-references · 7

  • Job 27:13“This is the portion of a wicked man with God, the heritage of oppressors, which they receive from the Almighty.
  • Job 31:2–3For what is the portion from God above, and the heritage from the Almighty on high?
  • Job 18:21Surely such are the dwellings of the unrighteous. This is the place of him who doesn’t know God.”
  • Ps 11:5–6Yahweh examines the righteous, but the wicked and him who loves violence his soul hates.
  • Lam 3:38Doesn’t evil and good come out of the mouth of the Most High?
  • Matt 24:51and will cut him in pieces, and appoint his portion with the hypocrites. There is where the weeping and grinding of teeth will be.
  • Deut 29:20–28Yahweh will not pardon him, but then Yahweh’s anger and his jealousy will smoke against that man, and all the curse that is written in this book will fall on him, and Yahweh will blot out his name from under the sky.

Themes, concepts, people & topics

Topics (2)

Resources, by level

Commentaries & study tools

  • VideoBibleProject — Job videosBibleProject · Lay · Free · evangelical

    Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.

  • VideoWatch teaching on Job 20:29YouTube · Lay · Free

    Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.

  • CommentaryEnduring Word — verse-by-verseDavid Guzik · Lay · Free · evangelical

    Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.

  • CommentaryClassic commentaries for this verseBibleHub (20+ works) · Pastoral · Free

    Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.

  • CommentaryMatthew Henry on JobMatthew Henry · Pastoral · Free · evangelical

    The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).

  • ReferenceInterlinear, lexicon & Strong'sBlue Letter Bible · Seminary · Free

    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 20:29 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.