Bible Strands
Job 20:16
He will suck the poison of cobras; the fangs of a viper will kill him.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Zophar addresses Job in a discourse on the ruin of the wicked, immediately following the description of forced regurgitation of ill-gotten wealth in verse 15.
The words — רֹאשׁ (rosh-) translates literally as poison, and יִינָק (yi.Nak) means he sucks, describing the violent reversal of consuming what he once hoarded.
The thread — The viper and poison imagery recurs in Deuteronomy 32:24 as divine judgment, is quoted in Romans 3:13 to describe the deceitful speech of the ungodly, and appears literally in Acts 28:3.
Why it lands — It demands recognition that hoarded wealth brings no security, only a fatal reversal where the tools of destruction ultimately consume the hoarder.
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
He shall suck the poison of asps: the viper’s tongue shall slay him.
Cross-references
- Acts 28:3 Paul gathered a bundle of sticks, and as he laid them on the fire, a viper, driven out by the heat, fastened itself to his hand.
- Romans 3:13 “Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit.” “The venom of vipers is on their lips.”
- Deuteronomy 32:24 They will be wasted from hunger and ravaged by pestilence and bitter plague; I will send the fangs of wild beasts against them, with the venom of vipers that slither in the dust.
- Isaiah 30:6 This is the burden against the beasts of the Negev: Through a land of hardship and distress, of lioness and lion, of viper and flying serpent, they carry their wealth on the backs of donkeys and their treasures on the humps of camels, to a people of no profit to them.
- Matthew 3:7 But when John saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his place of baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?