If I have sinned, what have I done to you, O watcher of all humanity? Why make me your target? Am I a burden to you?
Parallel translations
- WEB If I have sinned, what do I do to you, you watcher of men? Why have you set me as a mark for you, so that I am a burden to myself?
- KJV I have sinned; what shall I do unto thee, O thou preserver of men? why hast thou set me as a mark against thee, so that I am a burden to myself?
- BSB If I have sinned, what have I done to You, O watcher of mankind? Why have You made me Your target, so that I am a burden to You?
- NKJV Have I sinned? What have I done to You, O watcher of men? Why have You set me as Your target, So that I am a burden to myself?
- NASB “Have I sinned? What have I done to You, Watcher of mankind? Why have You made me Your target, So that I am a burden to myself?
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 what harm his sin could do to God, the watcher of men, and why he has become God's target and a burden to himself. He questions the purpose of his suffering.
Overview
Job concedes he may have sinned but cannot see how it would injure God or warrant such affliction. Calling God 'watcher of men,' he wrestles with why he feels singled out. The reader knows the trial's true cause lies in the heavenly contest of Job 1-2, hidden from Job, which teaches that not all suffering is punishment for sin.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 17
- Lam 3:12He has bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow.
- Job 3:24For my sighing comes before I eat. My groanings are poured out like water.
- Ps 36:6Your righteousness is like the mountains of God. Your judgments are like a great deep. Yahweh, you preserve man and animal.
- Job 7:11–12“Therefore I will not keep silent. I will speak in the anguish of my spirit. I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.
- Ps 80:4Yahweh God of Armies, How long will you be angry against the prayer of your people?
- Job 14:16But now you count my steps. Don’t you watch over my sin?
- Ps 21:12For you will make them turn their back, when you aim drawn bows at their face.
- Job 31:33if like Adam I have covered my transgressions, by hiding my iniquity in my heart,
- Job 16:12–14I was at ease, and he broke me apart. Yes, he has taken me by the neck, and dashed me to pieces. He has also set me up for his target.
- Job 33:9‘I am clean, without disobedience. I am innocent, neither is there iniquity in me.
- Job 33:27He sings before men, and says, ‘I have sinned, and perverted that which was right, and it didn’t profit me.
- Job 13:26For you write bitter things against me, and make me inherit the iniquities of my youth:
- Neh 9:6You are Yahweh, even you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their army, the earth and all things that are on it, the seas and all that is in them, and you preserve them all. The army of heaven worships you.
- Job 9:29–31I shall be condemned. Why then do I labor in vain?
- Job 6:4For the arrows of the Almighty are within me. My spirit drinks up their poison. The terrors of God set themselves in array against me.
- Job 35:6If you have sinned, what effect do you have against him? If your transgressions are multiplied, what do you do to him?
- Job 22:5Isn’t your wickedness great? Neither is there any end to your iniquities.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Commentaries & study tools
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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 7:20 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.