Bible Strands
Job 2:9
Then Job’s wife said to him, “Do you still retain your integrity? Curse God and die!”
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Job’s wife addresses him while he sits scraping his sores with broken pottery among the ashes. The text records her direct question about his continued integrity and her command to curse God and die.
The words — The Hebrew term מַחֲזִיק (machazik) means “keeping hold,” and בְּתֻמָּתֶךָ (betumatekha) translates to “your integrity.” The text explicitly frames her challenge around maintaining this state before suggesting that abandoning it leads to death.
The thread — Job 2:5 records Satan’s prediction that physical strikes will cause Job to curse God, while Job 2:3 notes God’s declaration of Job’s blamelessness. 2 Kings 6:33 places the king’s reaction to calamity in the same narrative sequence.
Why it lands — The verse forces a reader to confront the explicit demand to choose between cursing God and enduring suffering. It requires a plain assessment of whether devotion can survive when comfort is entirely removed.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Then said his wife unto him, Dost thou still retain thine integrity? curse God, and die.
Cross-references
- Job 2:5 But stretch out Your hand and strike his flesh and bones, and he will surely curse You to Your face.”
- Job 2:3 Then the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job? For there is no one on earth like him, a man who is blameless and upright, who fears God and shuns evil. He still retains his integrity, even though you incited Me against him to ruin him without cause.”
- 2 Kings 6:33 While Elisha was still speaking with them, the messenger came down to him. And the king said, “This calamity is from the LORD. Why should I wait for the LORD any longer?”
- Malachi 3:14 You have said, ‘It is futile to serve God. What have we gained by keeping His requirements and walking mournfully before the LORD of Hosts?
- Genesis 3:6 When the woman saw that the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eyes, and that it was desirable for obtaining wisdom, she took the fruit and ate it. She also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate it.
- 1 Kings 11:4 For when Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and he was not wholeheartedly devoted to the LORD his God, as his father David had been.
- Job 1:11 But stretch out Your hand and strike all that he has, and he will surely curse You to Your face.”
- Job 21:14 Yet they say to God: ‘Leave us alone! For we have no desire to know Your ways.
- Genesis 3:12 And the man answered, “The woman whom You gave me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”