Job 17
The full text of Job 17 in the Trinity Bible Version — clear modern English, translated from the original Hebrew. Free to read.
1 My spirit is broken; my days are extinguished;
the grave is ready for me.
2 Surely there are mockers about me,
and my eye dwells on their provocation.
3 Lay down a pledge for me with yourself;
who is there that will give surety for me?
4 Since you have closed their minds to understanding,
therefore you will not let them triumph.
5 He denounces friends for a share of the spoil,
while the eyes of his children languish.
6 He has made me a byword of the peoples,
and I am one before whom men spit.
7 My eye has grown dim from grief,
and all my members are like a shadow.
8 Upright men are appalled at this;
the innocent stirs himself up against the ungodly.
9 Yet the righteous holds to his way,
and he who has clean hands grows stronger and stronger.
10 But come again, all of you —
for I do not find a wise man among you.
11 My days are past; my plans are shattered,
the desires of my heart.
12 They make night into day;
'the light,' they say, 'is near to the darkness.'
13 If I hope for Sheol as my house,
if I spread my couch in darkness,
14 if I say to the pit, 'You are my father,'
and to the worm, 'My mother,' or 'My sister,'
15 where then is my hope?
Who will see my hope?
16 It will go down to the bars of Sheol;
we shall rest together in the dust.
Translation notes (6)
- Job 17:3a Job borrows the language of commercial law: a guarantor (Hebrew ʿarev) assumed liability for another's debt, sealing the agreement with a handclasp — the second clause reads literally 'who will strike himself into my hand?'. Proverbs repeatedly warns against this very act of striking hands in pledge (Proverbs 6:1; 17:18). Job asks God himself to stand as guarantor for him against God's own case.
- Job 17:5a The Hebrew uses the participle maggid, 'one who declares', making the subject indefinite; 'he' functions as a generic 'whoever'. 'Share of the spoil' renders cheleq, 'portion'; some instead derive chalaq, 'flattery', a reading reflected in the King James tradition.
- Job 17:6a Hebrew mashal, 'byword' (משל), and topheth, 'spitting' (תפת), depict public humiliation. Topheth here is a rare term (distinct from the place-name Topheth) that likely denotes the contemptuous gesture of spitting, a known sanction or insult in Israelite law and prophecy (Numbers 12:14; Deuteronomy 25:9; Isaiah 50:6).
- Job 17:9a The confident tone of verses 8-9 sits abruptly within Job's lament, and some commentators have proposed relocating them elsewhere in the dialogue; the Masoretic Text and the ancient versions, however, attest them in this position, and that order is retained here. The final clause is literally 'adds strength' (yosiph ometz), a Hebrew idiom for growing progressively stronger.
- Job 17:12a The Hebrew of the second clause is elliptical: 'or qarov mippene-choshekh, literally 'light is near from before darkness'. The verse supplies no subject, and the plural verb is most naturally taken of the friends, whose hollow consolations invert night and day by promising dawn where Job sees only encroaching darkness. Some instead read Job as quoting their optimism in mockery.
- Job 17:14a The Hebrew word shachath (שַׁחַת) can mean both 'pit' and 'corruption' or 'decay', creating a wordplay with the surrounding terms for death and the grave.
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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