Job 12
The full text of Job 12 in the Trinity Bible Version — clear modern English, translated from the original Hebrew. Free to read.
1 Then Job answered and said:
2 No doubt you are the people,
and wisdom will die with you!
3 But I have understanding as well as you;
I am not inferior to you.
Who does not know things like these?
4 I am a laughingstock to my friends —
one who called on God and was answered,
a righteous blameless man, a laughingstock!
5 In the thought of the comfortable, contempt for calamity;
it is ready for those whose feet slip.
6 The tents of destroyers are at peace,
and those who provoke God are secure —
those who carry their god in their fist.
7 But ask the animals, and they will teach you;
ask the birds of the air, and they will tell you;
8 speak to the earth, and it will instruct you;
let the fish of the sea declare to you.
9 Who among all these does not know
that the hand of the LORD has done this?
10 In his hand is the life of every living thing
and the breath of all mankind.
11 Does not the ear test words
as the palate tastes food?
12 Wisdom is with the aged;
understanding comes with length of days.
13 With God are wisdom and might;
counsel and understanding belong to him.
14 Whatever he tears down cannot be rebuilt;
whoever he shuts in cannot be released.
15 If he withholds the waters, they dry up;
if he sends them out, they overwhelm the land.
16 With him are strength and sound wisdom;
the deceived and the deceiver are his.
17 He leads counselors away stripped
and makes fools of judges.
18 He looses the bonds of kings
and binds a belt around their waist.
19 He leads priests away stripped
and overthrows men long established.
20 He silences the speech of the trusted
and takes away the discernment of elders.
21 He pours contempt on princes
and loosens the belt of the strong.
22 He uncovers the deep things out of darkness
and brings deep shadow into the light.
23 He makes nations great, then destroys them;
he spreads nations abroad, then drives them in.
24 He strips the understanding of leaders of the earth
and makes them wander in a pathless waste.
25 They grope in darkness without light;
he makes them stagger like drunkards.
Translation notes (7)
- Job 12:3a Hebrew levav, 'heart' (לבב), idiomatically denotes intellect, hence 'understanding'. The clause 'I am not inferior to you' reflects the idiom lo-nophel, 'I do not fall' (נפל), i.e., not of lower status. The final question is a rhetorical taunt expecting the answer 'no one'.
- Job 12:5a The consonants of lappid can be read as 'torch', yielding the King James tradition's 'lamp despised', or divided as la-pid, 'for calamity'. This translation adopts the division, since pid, 'misfortune', better suits the parallel image of slipping feet. The word ashtut, 'thought', occurs only here in the Hebrew Bible.
- Job 12:6a The Hebrew clause is ambiguous: eloah, 'god', and yad, 'hand', may mean either 'whom God brings into his hand' or, as taken here, 'who carry their god in their fist' — that is, whose own power serves as their deity. The latter sense matches the boast of Habakkuk 1:11, where the invader's 'strength is his god'.
- Job 12:8a The Hebrew uses the imperative sach from siach, 'converse' (שׂיח), an uncommon verb for 'speak' that elsewhere often means to meditate or complain. The idiom suggests deliberation, roughly 'consult the earth,' rather than ordinary speech.
- Job 12:9a The divine name yhwh (יהוה), rendered 'the LORD', occurs here alone in the poetic dialogues of Job, which otherwise use El, Eloah, and Shaddai for God; some medieval Hebrew manuscripts read Eloah in its place. The wording closely parallels Isaiah 41:20, 'that the hand of the LORD has done this'.
- Job 12:18a Hebrew 'ezor, 'belt' often denotes a sash of office; with moser, 'fetter', the image signals reversal of status—rulers are divested of the royal sash and then bound like captives with a cord at the waist. Ancient Near Eastern reliefs depict prisoners led by waist-ropes, which clarifies the humiliation implied.
- Job 12:24a Hebrew lev, 'heart', regarded as the seat of understanding, is what God strips from these rulers. The phrase tohu lo-derekh, literally 'a waste, no way', uses tohu, the word for the formless void of Genesis 1:2; the identical expression describes wandering princes in Psalm 107:40, a close verbal link between Job's speech and that psalm.
About this translation
The Trinity Bible Version (TBV) is a new translation of the Bible prepared by Trinity Bible — rendered from the original Hebrew and faithful to the earliest and most reliable manuscripts. Finished in 2026, it is the most modern English Bible translation you can read today, and it is available only through Trinity Bible. All 66 books, including Job, are free to read on this site.
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