Job13:1–28

“You put my feet in the stocks”: Elihu quotes Job verbal / quotation: confirmed

The noun סַד (sad, stocks, H5465) occurs in only two verses of the canon: here and Job 33:11, where Elihu repeats Job's words back to him, “He puts my feet in the stocks; He watches all my paths.” Ellicott notes “it is clear that Elihu understood Job to be speaking of God”; Cambridge and Pulpit point to the same reuse. Elihu also quotes v. 24 at 33:10 (“He counts me as His enemy”). This is an internal citation: the book records its own speakers quoting each other.

Job 33:11 · Job 33:10

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H5465 çad (in 2 vv), H734 ʼôrach (in 57 vv), H7272 regel (in 230 vv); the rare noun çad plus the clause order make this a quotation within the book

“Let not Your terror dismay me”: the condition from ch. 9 restated verbal / quotation: confirmed

Verse 21b, וְאֵמָתְךָ אַל־תְּבַעֲתַנִּי, repeats 9:34b almost word for word (there in the third person, “let not His terror dismay me”). K&D, Barnes, JFB and Pulpit all send the reader back to 9:34. In ch. 9 Job said there was no arbiter to lay a hand on both; in ch. 13 he asks God Himself to withdraw His hand. The same verb bā‘aṯ appears in v. 11, where Job warns the friends that God's majesty will terrify them: the terror he fears for himself he predicts for his accusers.

Job 9:34

basis: Verifier pair check: shared Hebrew lexemes H1204 bâʻath (in 16 vv), H367 ʼêymâh (in 17 vv), H408 ʼal (in 572 vv); two uncommon lexemes in the same syntax

Injustice and deceit: Job's charge, later Job's oath verbal / quotation: confirmed

Verse 7 pairs עַוְלָה (injustice) and רְמִיָּה (deceit) as what the friends speak “for God.” At 27:4 Job swears: “my lips will not speak injustice, and my tongue will not utter deceit,” the same two nouns in the same order. ⚙ The oath answers the charge: Job holds himself to the standard he demanded of the friends.

Job 27:4

basis: Verifier pair check: shared Hebrew lexemes H7423 rᵉmîyâh (in 15 vv), H5766 ʻevel (in 52 vv), H1696 dâbar (in 1049 vv)

Plasterers of lies: the rare verb ṭāp̄al verbal / quotation: confirmed

טֹפְלֵי שָׁקֶר (v. 4) shares a rare verb (H2950, 3 vv) with Ps 119:69, “The arrogant have smeared me with lies,” the same verb with the same object; K&D calls that psalm “decisive” for the sense. The third use is Job 14:17, where Job hopes God would “cover over” (ṭāp̄al) his iniquity; K&D says that verse confirms the reading too. ⚙ The friends plaster lies on Job; Job asks God to plaster over his sin. The same act of overlaying is accusation in human hands and mercy in God's.

Psalm 119:69 · Job 14:17

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexeme H2950 ṭâphal (in 3 vv) with both; Ps 119:69 also shares H8267 sheqer (in 109 vv); Job 14:17 also shares H5771 ʻâvôn and H6588 peshaʻ

“Who will contend with me?” and the moth-eaten garment: Isaiah's Servant verbal / quotation: confirmed

Job's two images at the end of this chapter meet again in one place. In Isaiah 50:8 the Servant says, “Who will contend with me? Let us stand together,” using rîḇ as Job does in v. 19; Cambridge and K&D both cite Isaiah 50:8 (K&D adding Romans 8:34). In Isaiah 50:9 the Servant's accusers “will all wear out like a garment; the moth will eat them,” the vocabulary of Job 13:28 (bālâh, ‘āš, ’ākal, beḡeḏ). ⚙ In Job the one wasting away like a moth-eaten garment is the sufferer; in Isaiah it is the sufferer's accusers. Whether Isaiah consciously echoes Job is not established; the verbal overlap is real.

Isaiah 50:8 · Isaiah 50:9

basis: Verifier pair check Job 13:28 / Isaiah 50:9: shared H6211 ʻâsh (in 12 vv), H1086 bâlâh (in 15 vv), H899 beged, H398 ʼâkal. Job 13:19 / Isaiah 50:8 shares only H7378 rîyb (in 58 vv) and H4310 mîy, so that half is structural; no claim of literary dependence

Moth and rot: Hosea's God and Job's body verbal / quotation: confirmed

Verse 28's רָקָב (rot, 5 vv) and עָשׁ (moth, 12 vv) together reappear in Hosea 5:12: “I am like a moth to Ephraim, and like rot to the house of Judah.” JFB and Barnes cite Hosea 5:12; Gill notes some interpreters make the “he” of v. 28 God Himself, “who sometimes is as rottenness and a moth to men.” ⚙ In Hosea the slow decay is explicitly God's judgment on covenant breakers; Job's terror is that he is being treated the same way without cause.

Hosea 5:12

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H6211 ʻâsh (in 12 vv), H7538 râqâb (in 5 vv); two rare lexemes paired in both, an image link, not a quotation

The driven leaf: a covenant curse felt by an innocent man verbal / quotation: confirmed

“A driven leaf” (עָלֶה נִדָּף, v. 25) appears in Leviticus 26:36, among the covenant curses: “the sound of a windblown leaf will put them to flight.” JFB cites Lev 26:36 here. ⚙ Job feels himself handled like the cursed covenant breaker, scattered by a leaf's rustle, while insisting he has not broken faith. The allusion, if intended, sharpens his protest; the Verifier confirms only the shared vocabulary.

Leviticus 26:36

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H5086 nâdaph (in 8 vv), H5929 ʻâleh (in 13 vv), H341 ʼôyêb (in 275 vv)

Bitter things: a rare word Zophar turns back on Job verbal / quotation: confirmed

מְרֹרוֹת (bitter things, v. 26) occurs in only four verses. K&D compares Deut 32:32, the “bitter” clusters of Israel's enemies. Two of the other uses are Zophar's in Job 20:14 and 20:25, of the wicked man's food turned to “venom” and the arrow through his gall. ⚙ Job says God writes bitter things against him; Zophar answers that bitterness is what the wicked swallow. The rare word becomes a weapon in the next round.

Deuteronomy 32:32 · Job 20:14 · Job 20:25

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexeme H4846 mᵉrôrâh (in 4 vv) with each; Job 20:25 also shares H367 ʼêymâh (in 17 vv)

“Though He slay me”: the rare verb qāṭal verbal / quotation: confirmed

יִקְטְלֵנִי (v. 15) uses qāṭal, a verb found in only three verses. The other two: Job 24:14, where the murderer “kills the poor and needy,” and Ps 139:19, “If only You would slay the wicked, O God.” ⚙ The word otherwise names the murderer's act and the slaying of the wicked; Job applies it to what God may do to him, which is why his resolve to argue his ways to God's face is so stark. Lexical link confirmed; the thematic irony is the tool's reading.

Job 24:14 · Psalm 139:19

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexeme H6991 qâṭal (in 3 vv) with both

Lifting the face: the partiality forbidden, the favor granted structural / thematic: confirmed

Job warns the friends against nāśā’ pānîm toward God (vv. 8, 10). The idiom is the Torah's word for judicial partiality (Lev 19:15; Deut 10:17, God “shows no partiality”). At the book's end the same idiom turns: God tells the friends, “My servant Job will pray for you, for I will lift his face” (42:8), and “the LORD lifted Job's face” (42:9). ⚙ The face the friends lifted falsely is not lifted; the face of the man they condemned is.

Job 42:8 · Deuteronomy 10:17 · Leviticus 19:15

basis: Verifier pair check Job 13:8 / Job 42:8: shared H5375 nâsâʼ (in 612 vv), H6440 pânîym (in 1892 vv), H518; both lexemes common, so the link is the shared idiom, not a rare word

Zeal for God without knowledge: Paul's diagnosis structural / thematic: confirmed

K&D glosses the friends' fault with two New Testament texts: Romans 10:2, “a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge,” and Galatians 6:7, “God is not mocked” (for v. 9's hāṯal). Barnes, JFB and Gill also cite Gal 6:7 at v. 9, and K&D adds John 16:2, service offered to God that is no service. Cross-Testament: the Greek cannot share Strong's numbers with the Hebrew, and no quotation is claimed. The link is a shared diagnosis of religious zeal that sacrifices truth.

Romans 10:2 · Galatians 6:7 · John 16:2

basis: Cross-Testament comparison recorded by K&D (Rom 10:2; Gal 6:7; John 16:2) and by Barnes, JFB, Gill (Gal 6:7); no shared Strong's possible Greek to Hebrew, no quotation claimed

“This will turn out for my salvation”: Paul and the Greek of Job 13:16 flagged: verify source

⚙ In the Septuagint, Job 13:16a reads τοῦτό μοι ἀποβήσεται εἰς σωτηρίαν, “this will turn out for me for salvation.” Paul writes the same five Greek words in Philippians 1:19, from prison, facing possible death and confident of vindication. Many modern interpreters regard this as a deliberate echo of Job; others think it a common phrase. None of the commentators in this brief mention it, so the observation is the tool's, and the Greek wording should be checked against a critical edition of the Septuagint before it is relied on.

Philippians 1:19

basis: Not in the brief's voices or Verifier candidates; rests on the Septuagint wording of Job 13:16 matching Phil 1:19 (Greek to Hebrew cannot share Strong's); whether Paul alludes to Job is debated

The Physician of no value, and the Physician who heals ancient/widely-held

Job calls the friends רֹפְאֵי אֱלִל, “physicians of nothing” (v. 4), using the participle God claims in Exodus 15:26, “I am the LORD who heals you.” Henry draws the line straight to Christ: “we should apply to the Physician of our souls, who never rejects any, never prescribes amiss ... To broken hearts and wounded consciences, all creatures, without Christ, are physicians of no value.” Jesus names Himself the physician who came for the sick (Mark 2:17). Gill contrasts the friends with the good Samaritan who poured oil and wine into wounds (Luke 10:34). This application is a commonplace of Christian reading of Job, recorded here by Henry and Gill.

Exodus 15:26 · Mark 2:17 · Luke 10:34

“Who will contend with me?”: the justified sufferer ancient/widely-held

Job says, “I know that I shall be in the right ... Who will contend with me?” (vv. 18 to 19). Cambridge and K&D cite Isaiah 50:8 to 9, where the Servant who gave his back to the smiters says, “He who vindicates me is near. Who will contend with me?” K&D sets Romans 8:34 beside it, and Gill reads v. 19 as the voice first of Christ, the surety justified, and then of every believer in Romans 8:33. ⚙ The apostolic reading is that Job's longing is fulfilled in a way Job could not foresee: the only truly innocent sufferer was vindicated by God (Isa 50:8; 1 Tim 3:16), and those who are His can therefore ask Job's question without presumption. Barnes and Pulpit rightly warn that Job's own ’eṣdāq is acquittal on a specific charge, not Pauline justification; the link is typological, not a claim about Job's meaning.

Isaiah 50:8 · Romans 8:33 · Romans 8:34

A driven leaf, and the bruised reed He will not break ancient/widely-held

“Will You terrify a driven leaf? Will You chase dry stubble?” (v. 25). JFB answers from Isaiah: “Jesus Christ does not ‘break the bruised reed’ (Isa 42:3).” Gill closes his note the same way: Job appeals to the God who “uses not to break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax.” Matthew 12:20 applies Isaiah 42:3 to Jesus. The question Job asks of God in his anguish receives its answer in the character of the Servant: the strong one does not crush what is already crushed.

Isaiah 42:3 · Matthew 12:20

Remove Your hand, lift Your terror: approach without dread ancient/widely-held

Job's two conditions (vv. 20 to 21) restate 9:33 to 34, where he lamented that there was no mōḵîaḥ, no arbiter to lay his hand on both parties. Christian readers have long heard in 9:33 the need that the one Mediator meets (1 Tim 2:5). ⚙ Hebrews describes the access Job asks for: not the terror of Sinai (Heb 12:18 to 21), but drawing near “with confidence to the throne of grace” through a high priest who sympathizes with weakness (Heb 4:15 to 16). The general link of Job 9:33 to Christ the Mediator is widely held; applying 13:20 to 21 specifically to Hebrews 4:16 is the tool's extension.

Job 9:33 · 1 Timothy 2:5 · Hebrews 4:16 · Hebrews 12:18

The hidden face and the One reckoned as enemy novel

⚙ “Why do You hide Your face and reckon me as Your enemy?” (v. 24). Psalm 22, which begins with the cry Jesus spoke from the cross (“My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?” Ps 22:1; Matt 27:46), ends by saying God “has not hidden His face from him” (Ps 22:24, the same Hiphil of sāṯar with pānîm). Job experiences the hidden face as an innocent man reckoned an enemy; the Gospel presents Christ, innocent, bearing that hiddenness for those who truly were enemies (Rom 5:10). None of the commentators in the brief draw this line at v. 24; it is offered as a novel reading, to be tested.

Psalm 22:1 · Psalm 22:24 · Matthew 27:46 · Romans 5:10