Am I a sea, or a sea serpent, That You set a guard over me?
Parallel translations
- WEB Am I a sea, or a sea monster, that you put a guard over me?
- KJV Am I a sea, or a whale, that thou settest a watch over me?
- BSB Am I the sea, or the monster of the deep, that You must keep me under guard?
- NASB “Am I the sea, or the sea monster, That You set a guard over me?
- NLT Am I a sea monster or a dragon that you must place me under guard?
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 asks whether he is some chaotic sea or sea-monster that God must keep under constant guard. He feels unjustly treated like a threat to be contained.
Overview
In the ancient Near East the sea and its monsters symbolized chaos that God restrains. Job ironically asks if he is so dangerous that God must watch him so closely. The complaint highlights Job's bewilderment at the intensity of God's attention to him in suffering, a mystery the book will address by God's own self-revelation.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 5
- Job 38:6–11Whereupon were its foundations fastened? Or who laid its cornerstone,
- Ezek 32:2–3Son of man, take up a lamentation over Pharaoh king of Egypt, and tell him, You were likened to a young lion of the nations: yet you are as a monster in the seas; and you broke out with your rivers, and troubled the waters with your feet, and fouled their rivers.
- Lam 3:7He has walled me about, that I can’t go out; he has made my chain heavy.
- Job 7:17What is man, that you should magnify him, that you should set your mind on him,
- Job 41:1–34“Can you draw out Leviathan with a fish hook, or press down his tongue with a cord?
Themes, concepts, people & topics
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
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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 7:12 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.