When a plague sweeps through, he laughs at the death 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.
- BSB When the scourge brings sudden death, He mocks the despair 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.
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 out of the populous city, men groan. The soul of the wounded cries out, yet God doesn’t regard the folly.
- 2 Sam 14:15Now therefore seeing that I have come to speak this word to my lord the king, it is because the people have made me afraid. Your servant said, ‘I will now speak to the king; it may be that the king will perform the request of his servant.’
- Job 8:20“Behold, God will not cast away a blameless man, neither will he uphold the evildoers.
- Ezek 14:19–21“Or if I send a pestilence into that land, and pour out my wrath on it in blood, to cut off from it man and animal;
- Job 2:7So Satan went out from the presence of Yahweh, and struck Job with painful sores from the sole of his foot to his head.
- Heb 11:36–37Others were tried by mocking and scourging, yes, moreover by bonds and imprisonment.
- Job 4:7“Remember, now, whoever perished, being innocent? Or where were the upright cut off?
- Ezek 21:13“For there is a trial. What if even the rod that condemns will be no more?” says the Lord Yahweh.
- Ps 44:22Yes, for your sake we are killed all day long. We are regarded as sheep for the slaughter.
- 2 Sam 14:17Then your servant said, ‘Please let the word of my lord the king bring rest; for as an angel of God, so is my lord the king to discern good and bad. May Yahweh, your God, be with you.’”
- Job 1:13–19It fell on a day when his sons and his 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.