When the scourge brings sudden death, He mocks the despair of the innocent.
Parallel translations
- WEB If the scourge kills suddenly, he will mock at the trial of the innocent.
- KJV If the scourge slay suddenly, he will laugh at the trial of the innocent.
- NKJV If the scourge slays suddenly, He laughs at the plight of the innocent.
- NASB “If the whip kills suddenly, He mocks the despair of the innocent.
- NLT When a plague sweeps through, he laughs at the death of the innocent.
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 charges that when sudden disaster kills, God seems to mock the despair of the innocent. It is among Job's most anguished accusations.
Overview
Job, overwhelmed, accuses God of indifference, even mockery, toward the suffering of the innocent struck by sudden calamity. These are the bitter words of profound grief, not the book's final teaching. God's later answer does not endorse this charge but reveals a wisdom and care Job could not yet perceive, calling readers to trust beyond what they can see.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 11
- Job 24:12From the city, men groan, and the souls of the wounded cry out, yet God charges no one with wrongdoing.
- 2 Sam 14:15Now therefore, I have come to present this matter to my lord the king because the people have made me afraid. Your servant thought, ‘I will speak to the king. Perhaps he will grant the request of his maidservant.
- Job 8:20Behold, God does not reject the blameless, nor will He strengthen the hand of evildoers.
- Ezek 14:19–21Or if I send a plague into that land and pour out My wrath upon it through bloodshed, cutting off from it both man and beast,
- Job 2:7So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD and infected Job with terrible boils from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head.
- Heb 11:36–37Still others endured mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment.
- Job 4:7Consider now, I plead: Who, being innocent, has ever perished? Or where have the upright been destroyed?
- Ezek 21:13Surely testing will come! And what if even the scepter, which the sword despises, does not continue?’ declares the Lord GOD.
- Ps 44:22Yet for Your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.
- 2 Sam 14:17And now your servant says, ‘May the word of my lord the king bring me rest, for my lord the king is able to discern good and evil, just like the angel of God. May the LORD your God be with you.’”
- Job 1:13–19One day, while Job’s sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother’s house,
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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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 9:23 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.