Atlas Biblica

    Job · 29 verses

    Job 20

    Every verse links to the people and places named in it, and to the passages readers connect it with.

    The chapter

    What happens here

    Atlas's own reading, written from this chapter and nothing else, and published only once a person has approved it. Each scene names the verses it covers; the names inside it link to the people and places they name.

    Zophar’s wicked man swallows wealth, and God makes him vomit it back; then, at the precise moment his stomach is full, fury rains down upon him as he eats.

    An answer compelled from withinvv. 1–3

    Zophar the Naamathite answers Job because anxious thoughts press upon him and turmoil churns within. He has heard a rebuke that insults him, and his understanding, apparently unable to leave the matter alone, prompts a reply.

    The wicked man’s portionvv. 4–29

    Zophar presents his rule as old as mankind: the triumph of the wicked is brief, however high his arrogance climbs. The great man becomes as fugitive as a dream, and then rather less grandly, like his own dung, while those who saw him ask where he has gone. His sons seek favour from the poor; his vigour lies down in the dust; his sweetly hidden evil sours inside him into cobra venom. Wealth itself will not stay swallowed. He vomits it out, cannot enjoy the rivers of honey and cream, and must return the fruit of his labour. The reason given is blunt: he oppressed the poor, forsook them, and seized houses he did not build. Then the reversals arrive in volleys—distress in plenty, fury during the meal, an arrow through the fleeing man, darkness for his treasures, fire in the tent, heavens exposing iniquity, earth rising against him, and his household possessions flowing away on the day of wrath. Zophar finishes by calling all this the wicked man’s portion and inheritance appointed by God.

    The text

    Read it

    Berean Standard Bible, public domain. Names the Hebrew and Greek put in the verse link to the person, place or people they name; the address beside each verse is a link to that verse, which is what a reader copies and shares.

    1. Job 20:1Then Zophar the Naamathite replied:

    2. Job 20:2“So my anxious thoughts compel me to answer, because of the turmoil within me.

    3. Job 20:3I have heard a rebuke that insults me, and my understanding prompts a reply.

    4. Job 20:4Do you not know that from antiquity, since man was placed on the earth,

    5. Job 20:5the triumph of the wicked has been brief and the joy of the godless momentary?

    6. Job 20:6Though his arrogance reaches the heavens, and his head touches the clouds,

    7. Job 20:7he will perish forever, like his own dung; those who had seen him will ask, ‘Where is he?’

    8. Job 20:8He will fly away like a dream, never to be found; he will be chased away like a vision in the night.

    9. Job 20:9The eye that saw him will see him no more, and his place will no longer behold him.

    10. Job 20:10His sons will seek the favor of the poor, for his own hands must return his wealth.

    11. Job 20:11The youthful vigor that fills his bones will lie down with him in the dust.

    12. Job 20:12Though evil is sweet in his mouth and he conceals it under his tongue,

    13. Job 20:13though he cannot bear to let it go and keeps it in his mouth,

    14. Job 20:14yet in his stomach his food sours into the venom of cobras within him.

    15. Job 20:15He swallows wealth but vomits it out; God will force it from his stomach.

    16. Job 20:16He will suck the poison of cobras; the fangs of a viper will kill him.

    17. Job 20:17He will not enjoy the streams, the rivers flowing with honey and cream.

    18. Job 20:18He must return the fruit of his labor without consuming it; he cannot enjoy the profits of his trading.

    19. Job 20:19For he has oppressed and forsaken the poor; he has seized houses he did not build.

    20. Job 20:20Because his appetite is never satisfied, he cannot escape with his treasure.

    21. Job 20:21Nothing is left for him to consume; thus his prosperity will not endure.

    22. Job 20:22In the midst of his plenty, he will be distressed; the full force of misery will come upon him.

    23. Job 20:23When he has filled his stomach, God will vent His fury upon him, raining it down on him as he eats.

    24. Job 20:24Though he flees from an iron weapon, a bronze-tipped arrow will pierce him.

    25. Job 20:25It is drawn out of his back, the gleaming point from his liver. Terrors come over him.

    26. Job 20:26Total darkness is reserved for his treasures. A fire unfanned will consume him and devour what is left in his tent.

    27. Job 20:27The heavens will expose his iniquity, and the earth will rise up against him.

    28. Job 20:28The possessions of his house will be removed, flowing away on the day of God’s wrath.

    29. Job 20:29This is the wicked man’s portion from God, the inheritance God has appointed him.”

    01 — Also here

    Who else the chapter reaches

    Names written in the English are linked in the text above. These are the ones that are not: an entity the Hebrew or Greek names under a spelling the translation does not use, or one reached only by an assertion about a verse of this chapter.

    Reached by an assertion Atlas extracted from a verse of this chapter rather than by a name written in it — a pronoun, a title, or a participant the sentence carries without naming. This layer is model-read and measured at 88.6–90.3% precision, and it is kept separate from the names above for that reason.

    02 — Read alongside

    Where this is echoed

    Readers' own connections, from OpenBible's crowd-voted cross-references — agreement about relevance, and not scholarly confidence. 274 passages were voted onto 29 verses of this chapter; the 16 shown lead on votes, and each is listed at the verse it was voted onto most strongly.

    • 5Psalms 37:35–36I have seen a wicked, ruthless man flourishing like a well-rooted native tree,
    • 15Proverbs 23:8You will vomit up what little you have eaten and waste your pleasant words.
    • 15Matthew 27:3–4When Judas, who had betrayed Him, saw that Jesus was condemned, he was filled with remorse and returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders.
    • 23Psalms 78:30–31Yet before they had filled their desire, with the food still in their mouths,
    • 29Job 27:13This is the wicked man’s portion from God—the heritage the ruthless receive from the Almighty.
    • 8Psalms 90:5You sweep them away in their sleep; they are like the new grass of the morning—
    • 9Job 7:8The eye that beholds me will no longer see me. You will look for me, but I will be no more.
    • 24Isaiah 24:18Whoever flees the sound of panic will fall into the pit, and whoever climbs from the pit will be caught in the snare. For the windows of heaven are open, and the foundations of the earth are shaken.
    • 24Amos 5:19It will be like a man who flees from a lion, only to encounter a bear, or who enters his house and rests his hand against the wall, only to be bitten by a snake.
    • 6Isaiah 14:13–14You said in your heart: “I will ascend to the heavens; I will raise my throne above the stars of God. I will sit on the mount of assembly, in the far reaches of the north.
    • 6Obadiah 1:3–4The pride of your heart has deceived you, O dwellers in the clefts of the rocks whose habitation is the heights, who say in your heart, ‘Who can bring me down to the ground?’
    • 8Psalms 73:20Like one waking from a dream, so You, O Lord, awaken and despise their form.
    • 26Psalms 21:9You will place them in a fiery furnace at the time of Your appearing. In His wrath the LORD will engulf them, and the fire will consume them.
    • 29Job 31:2–3For what is the allotment of God from above, or the heritage from the Almighty on high?
    • 9Job 7:10He never returns to his house; his place remembers him no more.
    • 9Job 8:18If he is uprooted from his place, it will disown him, saying, ‘ I never saw you.’

    Onward

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