“If one ventures a word with you, will you be wearied? Yet who can keep from speaking?
Parallel translations
- WEB “If someone ventures to talk with you, will you be grieved? But who can withhold himself from speaking?
- KJV If we assay to commune with thee, wilt thou be grieved? but who can withhold himself from speaking?
- NKJV “If one attempts a word with you, will you become weary? But who can withhold himself from speaking?
- NASB “If one ventures a word with you, will you become impatient? But who can refrain from speaking?
- NLT “Will you be patient and let me say a word? For who could keep from speaking out?
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
Eliphaz cautiously begins, acknowledging Job may be grieved by his words. He feels compelled to speak despite Job's pain.
Overview
Eliphaz opens with apparent tact, recognizing that his counsel may add to Job's distress, yet feeling unable to stay silent. His careful approach masks the troubling theology that follows. The verse shows how even well-intentioned words can wound when they misjudge the cause of another's suffering.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 6
- Job 32:18–20For I am full of words, and my spirit within me compels me.
- Acts 4:20For we cannot stop speaking about what we have seen and heard.”
- Jer 6:11But I am full of the LORD’s wrath; I am tired of holding it back. “Pour it out on the children in the street, and on the young men gathered together. For both husband and wife will be captured, the old and the very old alike.
- Jer 20:9If I say, “I will not mention Him or speak any more in His name,” His message becomes a fire burning in my heart, shut up in my bones, and I become weary of holding it in, and I cannot prevail.
- 2 Cor 2:4–6For through many tears I wrote you out of great distress and anguish of heart, not to grieve you but to let you know how much I love you.
- 2 Cor 7:8–10Even if I caused you sorrow by my letter, I do not regret it. Although I did regret it, I now see that my letter caused you sorrow, but only for a short time.
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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 4:2 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.