Bible Strands
Job 21:19
It is said that God lays up one’s punishment for his children. Let God repay the man himself, so he will know it.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Job speaks to his friends in the midst of a debate over the fate of the wicked, placing this verse between a metaphor of sudden destruction and a demand for direct personal experience of divine wrath.
The words — The Hebrew יִצְפֹּן (yitz.pon) translates literally as "he stores up," and יְשַׁלֵּ֖ם (ye.sha.Lem) means "let him repay."
The thread — The tension between accumulated generational consequences and direct individual retribution runs through Exodus 20:5, Ezekiel 18:19, and Isaiah 14:21.
Why it lands — The text explicitly states that God stores up punishment for children and demands the wicked man himself experience the repayment, requiring readers to weigh whether divine justice operates through inherited consequences or direct personal accountability.
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
God layeth up his iniquity for his children: he rewardeth him, and he shall know it.
Cross-references
- Exodus 20:5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on their children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me,
- Ezekiel 18:19 Yet you may ask, ‘Why shouldn’t the son bear the iniquity of his father?’ Since the son has done what is just and right, carefully observing all My statutes, he will surely live.
- Isaiah 14:21 Prepare a place to slaughter his sons for the iniquities of their forefathers. They will never rise up to possess a land or cover the earth with their cities.
- Isaiah 53:4 Surely He took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows; yet we considered Him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted.
- Jeremiah 31:29 “In those days, it will no longer be said: ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the teeth of the children are set on edge.’
- Ezekiel 18:2 “What do you people mean by quoting this proverb about the land of Israel: ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the teeth of the children are set on edge’?
- Deuteronomy 32:34 “Have I not stored up these things, sealed up within My vaults?
- Psalms 54:5 He will reward my enemies with evil. In Your faithfulness, destroy them.
- Psalms 109:9 May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow.
- Ezekiel 18:14 Now suppose this son has a son who sees all the sins his father has committed, considers them, and does not do likewise: