“If someone ventures to talk with you, will you be grieved? But who can withhold himself from speaking?
Parallel translations
- KJV If we assay to commune with thee, wilt thou be grieved? but who can withhold himself from speaking?
- BSB “If one ventures a word with you, will you be wearied? Yet who can keep 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. The spirit within me constrains me.
- Acts 4:20for we can’t help telling the things which we saw and heard.”
- Jer 6:11Therefore I am full of Yahweh’s wrath. I am weary with holding in. “Pour it out on the children in the street, and on the assembly of young men together; for even the husband with the wife shall be taken, the aged with him who is full of days.
- Jer 20:9If I say, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name, then there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I can’t.
- 2 Cor 2:4–6For out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote to you with many tears, not that you should be made sorry, but that you might know the love that I have so abundantly for you.
- 2 Cor 7:8–10For though I made you sorry with my letter, I do not regret it, though I did regret it. For I see that my letter made you sorry, though just for a while.
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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 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.