Job 9:17
in Job 9For He would crush me with a tempest and multiply my wounds without cause.
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
For he breaketh me with a tempest, And multiplieth my wounds without cause.
KJV
For he breaketh me with a tempest, and multiplieth my wounds without cause.
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This verse in Job 9
Commentary
11 notes on this verseFor he breaketh me with a tempest,.... Which rises suddenly, comes powerfully, and carries all before it irresistibly; hereby signifying the nature of his present sore afflictions, which came upon him at once, pressed him down, and utterly destroyed him, against which there was no standing: perhaps he may have some reference to the storm of wind that blew down the house, by which his children were destroyed.
This site's exposition
How then can I answer Him
on Job 9:14-19
"How then can I answer Him or choose my arguments against Him" draws the conclusion. If mountains and stars obey without argument, a man has less standing still. "For even if I were right, I could not answer" states Job's fear that real innocence would find no hearing.
This site's exposition
He would crush me with a tempest
Without cause is the phrase the LORD used at Job 2:3 when He told Satan that Job was ruined for no reason. Job speaks truly of his case. The Targum, Syriac and Arabic, as Clarke reports, read tempest as hair: God multiplies his wounds to every hair of his head.
The record, by era
The Church Fathers1 voice
These words mean two different things, either that Job had not sinned, even though he was, nevertheless, undergoing a punishment; or that Christ, as if he were guilty of sin, would have suffered resolutely the temptation of blameless passions.
The Medieval Church2 voices
He shows why he does not believe he is heard when he says, "For in the storm, he will wear me away." As is his custom, he now explains what he has said metaphorically saying, "and even multiply wounds without cause." To wear away is …
For He shall break me with a tempest. In every case that sinner is 'broken with a tempest,' who seemed to be stablished in tranquillity, in that the man whom the long-suffering Above bears with for long, the last strict Judgment destroys. And this is rightly called 'a tempest,' because it is manifested in a commotion of the elements, as the Psalmist witnesses, when he says, God shall come manifest, and He shall not keep silence; a fire shall devour before Him, and a mighty tempest round about Him.
The Puritans and the Awakening2 voices
Breaketh - Unexpectedly, violently, and irrecoverably. Cause - Not simply without any desert of his, but without any special cause of such singular afflictions; and peculiar and extraordinary guilt, such as his friends charged him with.
Yet it is true that as, on the one hand, there are many who are chargeable with more sin than the common infirmities of human nature, and yet feel no more sorrow than that of the common calamities of human life, so, on the other hand, there are many who feel more than the common calamities of human life and yet are conscious to themselves of no more than the common infirmities of human nature.
3 more voices on this verse
The Puritans and the Awakening1 voice
He knew how to make his part good with his friends, and thought himself able to deal with them; but, though his cause had been better than it was, he knew it was to no purpose to debate it with God.
The Nineteenth Century2 voices
He breaketh me with a tempest - The Targum, Syriac, and Arabic have this sense: He powerfully smites even every hair of my head and multiplies my wounds without cause. That is, There is no reason known to myself, or to any man, why I should be thus most oppressively afflicted. It is, therefore, cruel, and inconsequent to assert that I suffer for my crimes.
A commentator
Albert Barnes1798–1870
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
proposed
For he breaketh me - He is overwhelming me with a tempest; that is, with the storms of wrath. He shows me no mercy. The idea seems to be, that God acted toward him not as a judge determining matters by rule of law, but as a sovereign - determining them by his own will.
The words behind it
6 Hebrew wordsEvery Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.
| Hebrew | Sound | Meaning | Word study | In the Bible |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| אֲשֶׁר־ | ʾasher- | [he] who | H834 → | 5497 times |
| בִּשְׂעָרָ֥ה | bisarah | with a storm | H8183 → | |
| יְשׁוּפֵ֑נִי | yeshufeni | he crushes me | H7779 → | |
| וְהִרְבָּ֖ה | vehirbah | and he increases | H7235 → | 227 times |
| פְצָעַ֣י | fetzaai | wounds my | H6482 → | |
| חִנָּֽם׃ | chinam | without cause | H2600 → | 32 times |
אֲשֶׁר־[he] who
ʾasher-H834 →5497 times
בִּשְׂעָרָ֥הwith a storm
bisarahH8183 →
יְשׁוּפֵ֑נִיhe crushes me
yeshufeniH7779 →
וְהִרְבָּ֖הand he increases
vehirbahH7235 →227 times
פְצָעַ֣יwounds my
fetzaaiH6482 →
חִנָּֽם׃without cause
chinamH2600 →32 times
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
The walk
8 stopsEach card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.
Through
Psalms 25:3Surely none who wait for You will be put to shame; but those who are faithless without cause will be disgraced.
it leads to
- Lamentations 3:25
The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him.
- Isaiah 40:31
But those who wait upon the LORD will renew their strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not faint.
- Isaiah 49:23
Kings will be your foster fathers, and their queens your nursing mothers. They will bow to you facedown and lick the dust at your feet. Then you will know that I am the LORD;…
- Micah 7:7
But as for me, I will look to the LORD; I will wait for the God of my salvation. My God will hear me.
- Psalms 62:5
Rest in God alone, O my soul, for my hope comes from Him.
- Lamentations 3:25
Through
Matthew 7:27The rain fell, the torrents raged, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell—and great was its collapse!”
it leads to
- Matthew 13:19–22
When anyone hears the message of the kingdom but does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is the seed sown along the path.
- 1 Corinthians 3:13
his workmanship will be evident, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will prove the quality of each man’s work.
- 2 Peter 2:20–22
If indeed they have escaped the corruption of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, only to be entangled and overcome by it again, their final condition is worse…
- Matthew 13:19–22
Where this verse is studied
On this page
About Job
This page draws on 10 works. Open the list of works
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes on the Book of Job; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Ephrem the Syrian, COMMENTARY ON JOB 9:17; Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Book of Job; Gregory the Dialogist, Morals on the Book of Job, Book IX; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763); John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Job.