Thematic Bible
Thematic Bible
Job » Faith strained but victorious
Then Job answered: How long will you vex and torment me and break me in pieces with words? These ten times you have reproached me; you are not ashamed that you make yourselves strange [harden yourselves against me and deal severely with me]. read more.
And if it were true that I have erred, my error would remain with me [I would be conscious of it]. If indeed you magnify yourselves against me and plead against me my reproach and humiliation, Know that God has overthrown and put me in the wrong and has closed His net about me. Behold, I cry out, Violence! but I am not heard; I cry aloud for help, but there is no justice. He has walled up my way so that I cannot pass, and He has set darkness upon my paths. He has stripped me of my glory and taken the crown from my head. He has broken me down on every side, and I am gone; my hope has He pulled up like a tree. He has also kindled His wrath against me, and He counts me as one of His adversaries. His troops come together and cast up their way and siege works against me and encamp round about my tent. He has put my brethren far from me, and my acquaintances are wholly estranged from me. My kinsfolk have failed me, and my familiar friends have forgotten me. Those who live temporarily in my house and my maids count me as a stranger; I am an alien in their sight. I call to my servant, but he gives me no answer, though I beseech him with words. I am repulsive to my wife and loathsome to the children of my own mother. Even young children despise me; when I get up, they speak against me. All the men of my council and my familiar friends abhor me; those whom I loved are turned against me. My bone clings to my skin and to my flesh, and I have escaped with the skin or gums of my teeth. Have pity on me! Have pity on me, O you my friends, for the hand of God has touched me! Why do you, as if you were God, pursue and persecute me? [Acting like wild beasts] why are you not satisfied with my flesh? Oh, that the words I now speak were written! Oh, that they were inscribed in a book [carved on a tablet of stone]! That with an iron pen and [molten] lead they were graven in the rock forever! For I know that my Redeemer and Vindicator lives, and at last He [the Last One] will stand upon the earth. And after my skin, even this body, has been destroyed, then from my flesh or without it I shall see God, Whom I, even I, shall see for myself and on my side! And my eyes shall behold Him, and not as a stranger! My heart pines away and is consumed within me.
And if it were true that I have erred, my error would remain with me [I would be conscious of it]. If indeed you magnify yourselves against me and plead against me my reproach and humiliation, Know that God has overthrown and put me in the wrong and has closed His net about me. Behold, I cry out, Violence! but I am not heard; I cry aloud for help, but there is no justice. He has walled up my way so that I cannot pass, and He has set darkness upon my paths. He has stripped me of my glory and taken the crown from my head. He has broken me down on every side, and I am gone; my hope has He pulled up like a tree. He has also kindled His wrath against me, and He counts me as one of His adversaries. His troops come together and cast up their way and siege works against me and encamp round about my tent. He has put my brethren far from me, and my acquaintances are wholly estranged from me. My kinsfolk have failed me, and my familiar friends have forgotten me. Those who live temporarily in my house and my maids count me as a stranger; I am an alien in their sight. I call to my servant, but he gives me no answer, though I beseech him with words. I am repulsive to my wife and loathsome to the children of my own mother. Even young children despise me; when I get up, they speak against me. All the men of my council and my familiar friends abhor me; those whom I loved are turned against me. My bone clings to my skin and to my flesh, and I have escaped with the skin or gums of my teeth. Have pity on me! Have pity on me, O you my friends, for the hand of God has touched me! Why do you, as if you were God, pursue and persecute me? [Acting like wild beasts] why are you not satisfied with my flesh? Oh, that the words I now speak were written! Oh, that they were inscribed in a book [carved on a tablet of stone]! That with an iron pen and [molten] lead they were graven in the rock forever! For I know that my Redeemer and Vindicator lives, and at last He [the Last One] will stand upon the earth. And after my skin, even this body, has been destroyed, then from my flesh or without it I shall see God, Whom I, even I, shall see for myself and on my side! And my eyes shall behold Him, and not as a stranger! My heart pines away and is consumed within me.
Net » Figurative
They
My very life was bowed down.
They dug a pit before me;
Into the midst of it they themselves have fallen. Selah.
The wicked desire the plunder of evil men,
But the root of the righteous yields richer fruit.
For man also does not know his time [of death]; like fish caught in a treacherous net, and birds caught in the snare, so the sons of men are ensnared in an evil time when a dark cloud suddenly falls on them.
The fishermen will lament (cry out in grief),
And all those who cast a hook into the Nile will mourn,
And those who spread nets upon the waters will languish.
And I discovered that [of all irrational sins none has been so destructive in beguiling one away from God as immoral women for] more bitter than death is the woman whose heart is [composed of] snares and nets, and whose hands are chains. Whoever pleases God will escape from her, but the sinner will be taken captive by her [evil].
And it will come about that fishermen will stand beside it [at the banks of the Dead Sea]; from Engedi to Eneglaim there will be dry places to spread nets. Their fish will be of very many kinds, like the fish of the Great [Mediterranean] Sea.
“For the wicked is thrown into a net by his own feet (wickedness),
And he steps on the webbing [of the lattice-covered pit].
The nations have sunk down in the pit which they have made;
In the net which they hid, their own foot has been caught.
A man who flatters his neighbor [with smooth words intending to do harm]
Is spreading a net for his own feet.
My eyes are continually toward the Lord,
For He will bring my feet out of the net.
The proud have hidden a trap for me, and cords;
They have spread a net by the wayside;
They have set traps for me. Selah.
He lurks in a hiding place like a lion in his lair;
He lies in wait to catch the afflicted;
He catches the afflicted when he draws him into his net.
When they go, I will spread My net over them;
I will bring them down like birds of the heavens [into Assyrian captivity].
I will chastise them in accordance with the proclamation (prophecy) to their congregation.
You will draw me out of the net that they have secretly laid for me,
For You are my strength and my stronghold.
For without cause they hid for me their net; a pit of destruction without cause they dug for my life. Let destruction befall [my foe] unawares; let the net he hid for me catch him; let him fall into that very destruction.
Let the wicked fall into their own nets,
While I pass by and safely escape [from danger].
Her island in the midst of the sea will become a dry place to spread nets, for I have spoken,’ says the Lord God, ‘and she will become a prey and a spoil for the nations.
I will make you [Tyre] a bare rock; you will be a dry place on which to spread nets. You will never be rebuilt, for I the Lord have spoken,” says the Lord God.