Even that it would please God to destroy me; that he would let loose his hand, and cut me off!
Parallel translations
- WEB even that it would please God to crush me; that he would let loose his hand, and cut me off!
- BSB that God would be willing to crush me, to unleash His hand and cut me off!
- NKJV That it would please God to crush me, That He would loose His hand and cut me off!
- NASB “Oh, that God would decide to crush me, That He would let loose His hand and cut me off!
- NLT I wish he would crush me. I wish he would reach out his hand and kill me.
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 wishes God would be willing to crush him and cut off his life. In his agony he asks God for death as a release from suffering.
Overview
Job openly desires that God would end his life, seeing death as escape from unbearable pain. His honesty exposes the depths of despair without crossing into self-destruction, for he asks God to act. Scripture treats such anguished prayers with tenderness, and the gospel answers despair not by granting death but by giving, in Christ, a living hope that outlasts the grave.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 11
- 1 Kgs 19:4But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree: and he requested for himself that he might die; and said, It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers.
- Jonah 4:3Therefore now, O LORD, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live.
- Job 7:15–16So that my soul chooseth strangling, and death rather than my life.
- Jonah 4:8And it came to pass, when the sun did arise, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die, and said, It is better for me to die than to live.
- Isa 48:10–13Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction.
- Num 11:14–15I am not able to bear all this people alone, because it is too heavy for me.
- Job 14:13O that thou wouldest hide me in the grave, that thou wouldest keep me secret, until thy wrath be past, that thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember me!
- Ps 32:4For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer. Selah.
- Rev 9:6And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.
- Job 3:20–22Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, and life unto the bitter in soul;
- Job 19:21Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O ye my friends; for the hand of God hath touched me.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.
Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.
Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
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 6:9 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.