God’s Word Translation
Job 21:19
19“⌞You say,⌟ ‘God saves a person’s punishment for his children.’ God should pay back that person so that he would know that it is a punishment.
Job 21:19 in other versions
- King James Version (KJV)God layeth up his iniquity for his children: he rewardeth him, and he shall know it.
- New International Version (NIV)It is said, ‘God stores up the punishment of the wicked for their children.’ Let him repay the wicked, so that they themselves will experience it!
- English Standard Version (ESV)You say, 'God stores up their iniquity for their children.' Let him pay it out to them, that they may know it.
- New King James Version (NKJV)They say, ‘God lays up one’s iniquity for his children’; Let Him recompense him, that he may know it.
Context of Job 21:19
17“How often is the lamp of the wicked snuffed out? How often does disaster happen to them? How often does an angry God give them pain? 18How often are they like straw in the wind or like husks that the storm sweeps away? “⌞You say,⌟ ‘God saves a person’s punishment for his children.’ God should pay back that person so that he would know that it is a punishment. 20His eyes should see his own ruin. He should drink from the wrath of the Almighty. 21How can he be interested in his family after he’s gone, when the number of his months is cut short?
Read all of Job 21Job 21:19 word by word
אֱל֗וֹהַּ יִצְפֹּן־לְבָנָ֥יו אוֹנ֑וֹ יְשַׁלֵּ֖ם אֵלָ֣יו וְיֵדָֽע׃Read the interlinear
Words taken from the KJV.
Cross-references for Job 21:19
- Job 22:24and lay your gold down in the dust, and put your gold from Ophir among the pebbles in the rivers,
- Deuteronomy 32:34Isn’t this what I’ve stored under lock and key in my storehouses?
- Matthew 6:19“Stop storing up treasures for yourselves on earth, where moths and rust destroy and thieves break in and steal.
- Romans 2:5Since you are stubborn and don’t want to change the way you think and act, you are adding to the anger that God will have against you on that day when God vents his anger. At that time God will reveal that his decisions are fair.
- Genesis 4:7If you do well, won’t you be accepted? But if you don’t do well, sin is lying outside your door ready to attack. It wants to control you, but you must master it.”
- Isaiah 53:4He certainly has taken upon himself our suffering and carried our sorrows, but we thought that God had wounded him, beat him, and punished him.
- 2 Corinthians 5:21God had Christ, who was sinless, take our sin so that we might receive God’s approval through him.
- Exodus 20:5Never worship them or serve them, because I, the Lord your God, am a God who does not tolerate rivals. I punish children for their parents’ sins to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me.
- Psalms 109:9“Let his children become fatherless and his wife a widow.
- Isaiah 14:21Prepare a place to slaughter their sons because of their ancestors’ guilt. They won’t be able to rise, possess the earth, and rebuild cities all over it.
- Ezekiel 18:14“But suppose this person has a son. The son sees all the sins that his father does. He is afraid, so he doesn’t do such things.
- Matthew 23:31So you testify against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets.
- Deuteronomy 32:41I will sharpen my flashing sword and take justice into my own hands. Then I will take revenge on my enemies and pay back those who hate me.
- 2 Samuel 3:39Today I’m weak, though I’m the anointed king. These men, Zeruiah’s sons, are too cruel for me. May the Lord repay this evildoer as his evil deeds deserve.”
- Psalms 54:5My enemies spy on me. Pay them back with evil. Destroy them with your truth!
- Matthew 16:27The Son of Man will come with his angels in his Father’s glory. Then he will pay back each person based on what that person has done.
Commentaries on Job 21:19
- Adam Clarke Bible Commentary · v. 19God layeth up his iniquity for his children - This is according to the declaration of God, Exodus 20:5; : "Visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me." This always supposes that the children, who are thus visited, have copied their parents' example; or that ill-gotten property is found in their hands, which has descended to them from their wicked fathers; and of this God, in his…Read the comment
- Barnes’ Notes on the Bible · v. 19God layeth up his iniquity for his children - Margin, that is, “the punishment of iniquity.” This is a reference evidently to the opinion which “they” had maintained. It may be rendered, “You say that God layeth up iniquity,” etc. They had affirmed that not only did God, as a great law, punish the wicked in this life, but that the consequences of their sins passed over to their posterity; or, if “they” were not punished, yet the calamity would certainly…Read the comment
- Matthew Henry Concise Commentary · v. 17-26Verses 17-26 Job had described the prosperity of wicked people; in these verses he opposes this to what his friends had maintained about their certain ruin in this life. He reconciles this to the holiness and justice of God. Even while they prosper thus, they are light and worthless, of no account with God, or with wise men. In the height of their pomp and power, there is but a step between them and ruin. Job refers the difference Providence makes between…Read the comment
- Tyndale Open Study Notes · v. 19It is said: Job was quoting and responding to his friends' arguments. God lays up one’s punishment for his children: Eliphaz and Zophar said this, but Job believed God should punish the people who sin (5:4; 20:10; see Ezekiel 18:19–20).Read the comment
- Jamieson–Fausset–Brown Commentary · v. 1919. Equally questionable is the friends' assertion that if the godless himself is not punished, the children are (Job 18:19; 20:10); and that God rewardeth him here for his iniquity, and that he shall know it to his cost. So "know" (Ho 9:7).Read the comment
Topics related to Job 21:19
In the dictionaries
Commentaries on Job 21
- Adam Clarke Bible Commentary
- Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
- Matthew Henry Concise Commentary
- Tyndale Open Study Notes
- Jamieson–Fausset–Brown Commentary
- Rashi on Tanakh
- Keil & Delitzsch Commentary
- John Wesley’s Notes
- Darby Translation Notes
- Geneva Bible Translation Notes
- Kingcomments
- Matthew Henry’s Complete Commentary
- Matthew Henry’s Modern English Commentary
- Scofield Reference Notes, 1917 Edition
- Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary
- EGW Writings
God’s Word Translation — © 1995 God’s Word to the Nations Bible Society
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