Job 9:23
If he scourge, let him kill at once, and not laugh at the pains of the innocent.
Open Job 9:23 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Si flagellat, occidat semel, et non de pœnis innocentum rideat.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- ὅτι φαῦλοι ἐν θανάτῳ ἐξαισίῳ, ἀλλὰ δίκαιοι καταγελῶνται·
- Hebrew (WLC)
- אִם שׁ֭וֹט יָמִ֣ית פִּתְאֹ֑ם לְמַסַּ֖ת נְקִיִּ֣ם יִלְעָֽג
Haydock's commentary
Innocent. Having expressed his sentiments clearly, now he mentions what he could desire under the pressure of misery. (Menochius)
Seeing the danger of falling, to which he was exposed, he begged to be delivered by death. We are taught by our Saviour to pray, Lead us not into temptation, Matthew vi. 13. God does not laugh at our sufferings, but he acts like a surgeon, and cuts without minding our complaints. Ridere Dei est humanæ nolle afflictioni misereri. (St. Gregory) (Calmet)
Hebrew, "If the scourge slay suddenly, he will laugh at the trial of the innocent." (Protestants) (Haydock)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Gregory Nazianzen On the Great Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria
17. His acts of insolence towards the saint you all know in full detail. Often were the righteous given into the hands of the wicked, not that the latter might be honoured, but that the former might be tested: and though the wicked come, as it is written, to an awful death, nevertheless for the present the godly are a laughing stock, while the goodness of God and the great treasuries of what is in store for each of them hereafter are concealed. Then indeed word and deed and thought will be weighed in the just balances of God, as He arises to judge the earth, gathering together counsel and works, and revealing what He had kept sealed up. …