New Living Translation
Job 19:20
20I have been reduced to skin and bones and have escaped death by the skin of my teeth.
Job 19:20 in other versions
- King James Version (KJV)My bone cleaveth to my skin and to my flesh, and I am escaped with the skin of my teeth.
- New International Version (NIV)I am nothing but skin and bones; I have escaped only by the skin of my teeth.
- English Standard Version (ESV)My bones stick to my skin and to my flesh, and I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.
- New King James Version (NKJV)My bone clings to my skin and to my flesh, And I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.
Context of Job 19:20
18Even young children despise me. When I stand to speak, they turn their backs on me. 19My close friends detest me. Those I loved have turned against me. I have been reduced to skin and bones and have escaped death by the skin of my teeth. 21“Have mercy on me, my friends, have mercy, for the hand of God has struck me. 22Must you also persecute me, like God does? Haven’t you chewed me up enough?
Read all of Job 19Job 19:20 word by word
בְּעוֹרִ֣י וּ֭בִבְשָׂרִי דָּבְקָ֣ה עַצְמִ֑י וָ֝אֶתְמַלְּטָ֗ה בְּע֣וֹר שִׁנָּֽי׃Read the interlinear
Words taken from the KJV.
Cross-references for Job 19:20
- Job 30:30My skin has turned dark, and my bones burn with fever.
- Job 33:19“Or God disciplines people with pain on their sickbeds, with ceaseless aching in their bones.
- Psalms 22:14My life is poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax, melting within me.
- Psalms 32:3When I refused to confess my sin, my body wasted away, and I groaned all day long.
- Psalms 38:3Because of your anger, my whole body is sick; my health is broken because of my sins.
- Psalms 102:3For my days disappear like smoke, and my bones burn like red-hot coals.
- Lamentations 4:8But now their faces are blacker than soot. No one recognizes them in the streets. Their skin sticks to their bones; it is as dry and hard as wood.
- Amos 2:4This is what the Lord says: “The people of Judah have sinned again and again, and I will not let them go unpunished! They have rejected the instruction of the Lord, refusing to obey his decrees. They have been led astray by the same lies that deceived their ancestors.
- Amos 7:5Then I said, “O Sovereign Lord, please stop or we will not survive, for Israel is so small.”
- Lamentations 3:4He has made my skin and flesh grow old. He has broken my bones.
- Lamentations 5:10The famine has blackened our skin as though baked in an oven.
Commentaries on Job 19:20
- Adam Clarke Bible Commentary · v. 20My bone cleaveth to my skin - My flesh is entirely wasted away, and nothing but skin and bone left. I am escaped with the skin of my teeth - I have had the most narrow escape. If I still live, it is a thing to be wondered at, my sufferings and privations have been so great. To escape with the skin of the teeth seems to have been a proverbial expression, signifying great difficulty. I had as narrow an escape from death, as the thickness of the enamel on…Read the comment
- Barnes’ Notes on the Bible · v. 20My bone cleaveth to my skin and to my flesh - The meaning of this probably is, “my skin and flesh are dried up so that the bone seems adhere to the skin, and so tht the form of the bone becomes visible.” It is designed to denote a state of great emaciation, and describes an effect which we often see. And I am escaped with the skin of my teeth - A very difficult expression, and which has greatly perplexed commentators, and on whose meaning they are by no…Read the comment
- Matthew Henry Concise Commentary · v. 8-22Verses 8-22 How doleful are Job's complaints! What is the fire of hell but the wrath of God! Seared consciences will feel it hereafter, but do not fear it now: enlightened consciences fear it now, but shall not feel it hereafter. It is a very common mistake to think that those whom God afflicts he treats as his enemies. Every creature is that to us which God makes it to be; yet this does not excuse Job's relations and friends. How uncertain is the…Read the comment
- Tyndale Open Study Notes · v. 20escaped by the skin of my teeth: This figure of speech means a narrow escape. In Hebrew, it might also suggest that Job became as thin as a skeleton with a skull full of teeth.Read the comment
- Jamieson–Fausset–Brown Commentary · v. 2020. Extreme meagerness. The bone seemed to stick in the skin, being seen through it, owing to the flesh drying up and falling away from the bone. The Margin, "as to my flesh," makes this sense clearer. The English Version, however, expresses the same: "And to my flesh," namely, which has fallen away from the bone, instead of firmly covering it. skin of my teeth--proverbial. I have escaped with bare life; I am whole only with the skin of my teeth; that is…Read the comment
Topics related to Job 19:20
In the dictionaries
Commentaries on Job 19
- 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
New Living Translation — © 1996, 2004, 2015 Tyndale House Foundation
Commentaries