Subject

Suffering

Why it hurts, what God says about it, and where He is in it.

Also called: affliction, pain, tribulation, trouble, why do the righteous suffer, trial

This subject covers pain, why Scripture allows the question, and where God is in it. Sorrow after a death belongs to Grief. Continuing under the pressure belongs to Perseverance.

What Suffering covers, and where it stops

This subject covers pain, why Scripture allows the question, and where God is in it. Sorrow after a death belongs to Grief. Continuing under the pressure belongs to Perseverance.

On this page, 8 sections

Across the canon
Where Scripture speaks
The whole account
The voices
Where it leads
The words underneath
The complete list
Subjects beside it

12 passages

Where Scripture speaks

The passages this subject stands on, in canon order.

And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;

Genesis 3:17KJVThe Fall introduces toil and pain into human labor — the root of suffering in a cursed creation

And said, Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.

Job 1:21KJVJob's response to catastrophic loss: worship that neither explains nor demands an explanation

For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth:

Job 19:25KJVFaith holds to a living Redeemer even while the suffering itself stays unresolved

I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee.

Job 42:5KJVThe book's resolution is relational encounter with God, not a theory of why he suffered

My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?

Psalms 22:1KJVThe cry of dereliction — later voiced by Christ on the cross (Matthew 27:46)

Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the Lord delivereth him out of them all.

Psalms 34:19KJVAffliction is normal for the righteous, but not the LORD's final word — he delivers

It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes.

Psalms 119:71KJVAffliction reframed as instruction: it drove the psalmist to God's statutes

He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Isaiah 53:3KJVThe Servant of the LORD as a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief

But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

Isaiah 53:5KJVThe Servant's suffering named as substitutionary — for the transgressions of others

Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.

Isaiah 53:10KJVThe Servant's suffering situated inside the LORD's own purpose, not merely inflicted on him

It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.

Lamentations 3:22KJVAmid Jerusalem's destruction, suffering does not exhaust God's mercies

Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.

Habakkuk 3:18KJVJoy in the LORD held even when every circumstance of provision fails

Job hears in a single hour of the loss of his children, servants, and flocks — and falls down and worships anyway (Job 1:20-21).Gustave Doré, Doré's English Bible (1866), public domain

Suffering in Scripture, in full

Suffering in Scripture is not explained away but inhabited — by Job, by the psalms of lament, by the prophets, by the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53, and finally by Christ on the cross. The Bible holds suffering together with the character of God without simplifying either. Every mature biblical response teaches the sufferer to speak honestly and to wait.

4 voices

What teachers have said

“Those who suffer for Christ, have his gracious presence with them in their sufferings, even in the fiery furnace, even in the valley of the shadow of death, and therefore need fear no evil.”

John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, 1765

“He is praying, suffering many things, from evil yearning to be delivered: it remains that we hear in what evil he is, and when he begins to speak, let us acknowledge there ourselves to be; in order that the tribulation being shared, we may conjoin prayer.”

Augustine of Hippo · Exposition on Psalm 55

Written before 430.

“The furnace proveth the potter's vessel, and righteous men the trial of tribulation.”

Cyprian · Treatise XI Exhortation to Martyrdom Addressed to Fortunatus

Written before 258.

“a rock to build upon, a rock to take shelter in. The rock of ages, in whom is everlasting strength, would be his rock, his strength in the inner man, both for doing and suffering.”

Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710

Where it leads

Everything the site holds on suffering

On this page

Studies3

On this subject

The Question of Suffering: Job 1-42

On this book

The words underneath

Each card is one Hebrew or Greek word behind suffering. It gives the sense, the count across the canon, and the number in Strong's 1890 concordance.

sheber: breaking

Hebrew · H7667

שֶׁבֶר

Strong's entry: a fracture, figuratively, ruin; specifically, a solution (of a dream)

suffering pictured as something shattered

45 times in the Old Testament · sheber, in full →

thlipsis: pressure

Greek · G2347

θλῖψις

Strong's entry: pressure (literally or figuratively)

the NT's word for the crushing weight of trial

44 times in the New Testament · thlipsis, in full →

tsarah: dearth

Hebrew · H6869

צָרָה

Strong's entry: tightness (i.e. figuratively, trouble); transitively, a female rival

the anguish of being pressed on every side

73 times in the Old Testament · tsarah, in full →

to suffer

Greek · G3958

Strong's entry: to experience a sensation or impression (usually painful)

the verb the NT uses for what Christ endured on the cross

42 times in the New Testament · open the word study →

349 verses

The complete list

The King James text uses the language of suffering in 351 verses. 2 of them are quoted above and the other 349 stand here, book by book. 10 more verses above show suffering without using one of its words, so they are outside that count. Open a book to read the references with a clause of each verse.

Genesis9