Job 27: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Job goes on speaking. He swears by the living God (the same God who, he says, has denied him justice and made him bitter) that he will never agree with his friends and will hold onto his integrity as long as he lives. He then lays out what he says the wicked and the ruthless receive from the Almighty: children destined for the sword, wealth that ends up worn and divided by the righteous, a house as flimsy as a moth's cocoon, and a night storm that sweeps the man away. The speech closes with the man being hissed out of his place.

Claim by Claim

1. 27:1
   • Job resumed his discourse.
   • Job spoke.
2. 27:2
   • Job swore an oath by the life of God.
   • Job said God had taken away his justice.
   • Job said the Almighty had made his soul bitter.
3. 27:3
   • Job said his breath was still in him.
   • Job said the breath of God was in his nostrils.
   • Job's declaration held for as long as those conditions lasted.
4. 27:4
   • Job said his lips would not speak wrongdoing.
   • Job said his tongue would not utter deceit.
5. 27:5
   • Job said it would be a profanity for him to declare his friends in the right.
   • Job said he would not remove his integrity from himself until he died.
6. 27:6
   • Job said he held fast to his righteousness.
   • Job said he would not let his righteousness go.
   • Job said his heart would not reproach him for any of his days.
7. 27:7
   • Job said, let my enemy be like the wicked.
   • Job said, let the one who rises against me be like the unjust.
8. 27:8
   • Job asked what hope the godless man has.
   • The condition attached to the question is ambiguous: it can mean when the godless man makes his gain, or when he is cut off.
   • Job asked what hope the godless man has when God takes away his life.
9. 27:9
   • Job asked whether God will hear the godless man's cry.
   • Job asked this of the time when distress comes upon that man.
10. 27:10
    • Job asked whether the godless man will delight himself in the Almighty.
    • Job asked whether the godless man will call on God at all times.
11. 27:11
    • Job said he would teach his hearers concerning the hand of God.
    • Job said he would not conceal what is with the Almighty.
12. 27:12
    • Job said his hearers had all seen it themselves.
    • Job asked why they then speak emptily.
13. 27:13
    • This is the portion a wicked man has with God.
    • This is the inheritance that ruthless men receive from the Almighty.
14. 27:14
    • If the wicked man's children multiply, they are destined for the sword.
    • The wicked man's offspring will not have enough bread.
15. 27:15
    • Those of his who survive will be buried by death.
    • The term used for the cause of burial is ambiguous: it can mean death itself or plague.
    • His widows will not weep.
16. 27:16
    • Though the wicked man heaps up silver like dust.
    • Though he piles up clothing like clay.
17. 27:17
    • He may pile it up, but the righteous man will wear it.
    • The innocent will divide his silver.
18. 27:18
    • He builds his house like a moth's.
    • He makes it like a booth a watchman makes.
19. 27:19
    • The rich man lies down but will not be gathered.
    • He opens his eyes and he is gone.
20. 27:20
    • Terrors overtake him like waters.
    • A tempest steals him away in the night.
21. 27:21
    • The east wind carries him off and he goes.
    • It sweeps him away out of his place.
22. 27:22
    • Something hurls itself upon him and does not spare.
    • The one who hurls is not named in the text: it may be God or the wind.
    • He flees headlong from its hand.
23. 27:23
    • Hands are clapped at him.
    • He is hissed at out of his place.
    • The one who claps and hisses is not named in the text: it may be onlookers or the wind.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

27:1

"Parable" here does not mean a story with a moral. The Hebrew word (mashal) covers any weighty, formal, poetic speech, a saying, a taunt, a discourse. The phrase "continued his parable" signals that Job takes up his set speech again; his three friends have been answering him in turn, and this is his reply resuming.

27:2

"As God liveth" is the standard Hebrew oath formula, swearing by the life of God, the most binding oath a person could take. The wording is pointed: Job swears by the very God he is accusing in the same breath. "Taken away my judgment" is courtroom language: refused him his legal case, denied him a hearing. Job speaks throughout as a man who wants a trial and cannot get one.

27:3

The Hebrew word here (ruach) means breath, wind, and spirit all at once, so "the spirit of God is in my nostrils" is also simply "the breath God gave me is still in my nose", the ordinary Hebrew way of saying a person is still alive, echoing the picture of God breathing life into a human being's nostrils.

27:5

"God forbid" translates a Hebrew idiom that literally means "far be it from me", a strong refusal that does not actually name God. "Justify you" is a legal term: to declare someone to be in the right, the way a judge rules in a party's favor. Job refuses to give his friends that verdict.

27:6

"Righteousness" here is not moral perfection but being in the right in a dispute, the innocence of a defendant whose case holds up. "My heart shall not reproach me" uses "heart" in the Hebrew sense of the mind and inner judgment, close to what we call conscience.

27:7

This is worded as a curse or wish, the ancient way of protesting one's innocence: may whoever accuses me end up receiving the fate that actually belongs to the guilty. It is a claim about who is in the wrong, put in the form of a prayer against an opponent.

27:8

"Hypocrite" in 1611 English translated a Hebrew word (chanef) meaning godless, irreligious, morally polluted. It does not mean someone pretending to be better than he is; the modern sense of "hypocrite" developed later.

27:11

"By the hand of God" uses "hand" in its common Hebrew sense of power or working, Job is saying he will teach them about how God exercises power, not about God's literal hand.

27:12

"Vain" here keeps its older sense of empty or without substance. The charge is that the friends' words are hollow, not that they are conceited.

27:13

"Portion" and "heritage" are the language of inherited property, the share of land or goods allotted to a person. Applied to a person's fate, they mean the lot assigned to him, what he has coming. Readers should also know that verses 13-23 sound very like what Job's friends have been arguing and unlike what Job has said elsewhere; because Zophar, the third friend, never gets a third speech in the book as it stands, many readers have suspected that these lines were originally his, or that Job is quoting the friends' doctrine back at them. The Hebrew text gives no speaker marks, so the ambiguity cannot be resolved from the wording.

27:14

"For the sword" means destined to die violently, in war or raid, the sword stands for violent death generally. "Bread" in Hebrew idiom regularly means food of any kind, not just baked loaves.

27:15

The Hebrew word rendered "death" here is often taken in the specific sense of deadly plague or pestilence, which is why modern translations say "buried by the plague." That widows do not weep is a mark of disgrace, not indifference: formal loud mourning at a burial was a social duty, and to be buried without it, often because a plague left no one able or willing to perform the rites, was a shameful end.

27:16

Cloth was a major store of wealth in the ancient world, not just something to wear. Chests of garments were accumulated, inherited, and handed over as gifts and payments, so "piling up clothing" alongside silver is a picture of a rich man's treasury.

27:18

Two images of flimsiness. The moth's structure is the frail case or cocoon it builds, crushed by a touch. The "booth that the keeper maketh" is the rough shelter of branches a watchman threw up in a vineyard or melon field to guard the crop during harvest, then abandoned when the season ended.

27:19

"Not gathered" is ambiguous in the Hebrew and has been read two ways: that the rich man is not "gathered to his fathers," that is, not given a proper burial with his ancestors; or, following an early variant reading, that he lies down rich and will never do so again. The rendering keeps the first sense.

27:21

The east wind is the sirocco, a scorching wind off the Arabian desert. It blows in from the interior, withers vegetation within hours, and was the standard image in Hebrew for sudden, unstoppable destruction.

27:22

"Would fain flee" is old English for "would gladly flee" or "tries desperately to flee." The Hebrew of verses 22-23 does not state who is doing the hurling and hissing; it may be God, carried over from the start of verse 22, or the east wind of verse 21 personified. Translations differ, and the rendering here takes it as the wind.

27:23

Clapping and hissing are gestures of scorn, not applause. In Hebrew idiom, to clap the hands at someone and to hiss or whistle at them expresses contemptuous mockery and shock at their downfall, the noise a crowd makes over ruins.