If my land cries out against me, and its furrows weep together;
Parallel translations
- KJV If my land cry against me, or that the furrows likewise thereof complain;
- BSB if my land cries out against me and its furrows weep together,
- NKJV “If my land cries out against me, And its furrows weep together;
- NASB ¶“If my land cries out against me, And its furrows weep together;
- NLT “If my land accuses me and all its furrows cry out together,
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 calls down a curse if his land cries out against him and its furrows weep together. He swears he never wronged the very ground he farmed.
Overview
Job invokes judgment if his fields could testify against him for injustice, picturing the land itself crying out and its furrows mourning over wrongdoing. This personification recalls how the ground bore witness against Cain. Job's concern for justice even in the use of his land reflects a thorough righteousness, and the groaning of creation under injustice anticipates its longing for the redemption secured in Christ.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 4
- Hab 2:11For the stone will cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the woodwork will answer it.
- Jas 5:4Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you have kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of those who reaped have entered into the ears of the Lord of Armies.
- Job 20:27The heavens shall reveal his iniquity. The earth shall rise up against him.
- Ps 65:13The pastures are covered with flocks. The valleys also are clothed with grain. They shout for joy! They also sing.
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 31:38 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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