Bible Strands
Job 31:27
so that my heart was secretly enticed and my hand threw a kiss from my mouth,
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Job speaks in his sworn defense of integrity, addressing his accuser or God regarding his conduct. He details a specific temptation to idolatry that he actively resisted.
The words — The text highlights בְּסֵתֶר (bə-sēter, "in secrecy") and תִּשָּׁק (tiššāq, "it kissed"), tracing a hidden internal enticement that erupts into a physical gesture of reverence. These terms map the progression from concealed desire to outward action.
The thread — This progression from hidden enticement to physical worship appears in Deuteronomy 11:16 and Deuteronomy 13:6 regarding secret enticement to other gods, and is echoed in 1 Kings 19:18 with the phrase "whose mouths have not kissed."
Why it lands — The verse demands a reader to examine whether personal compromises begin in concealed thoughts before becoming public acts. It establishes that internal alignment with God must precede external worship to avoid self-deception.
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
And my heart hath been secretly enticed, or my mouth hath kissed my hand:
Cross-references
- Deuteronomy 13:6 If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you embrace, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, “Let us go and worship other gods” (which neither you nor your fathers have known,
- Deuteronomy 11:16 But be careful that you are not enticed to turn aside to worship and bow down to other gods,
- 1 Kings 19:18 Nevertheless, I have reserved seven thousand in Israel—all whose knees have not bowed to Baal and whose mouths have not kissed him.”
- Psalms 2:12 Kiss the Son, lest He be angry and you perish in your rebellion, when His wrath ignites in an instant. Blessed are all who take refuge in Him.
- Isaiah 44:20 He feeds on ashes. His deluded heart has led him astray, and he cannot deliver himself or say, “Is not this thing in my right hand a lie?”
- Hosea 13:2 Now they sin more and more and make for themselves cast images, idols skillfully made from their silver, all of them the work of craftsmen. People say of them, “They offer human sacrifice and kiss the calves!”
- Romans 1:21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking and darkened in their foolish hearts.
- Romans 1:28 Furthermore, since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, He gave them up to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.