Bible Strands
Job 36:13
The godless in heart harbor resentment; even when He binds them, they do not cry for help.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Elihu addresses Job and the assembled listeners, describing the posture of the defiant when God imposes discipline. He places this statement immediately after warning that disobedience leads to violent death and before noting that the unrepentant perish in their youth.
The words — חַנְפֵי־לֵב (chanfei-lev) renders literally as "godless of heart," and אֲסָרָם ('asaram) means "he has bound them." The text pairs these terms to show that the same divine restraint that should prompt repentance instead provokes hardened resentment.
The thread — This pattern of unyielding hearts under restraint appears in Job 36:8, where the afflicted are caught in cords of affliction, and in Romans 2:5, where a hard and unrepentant heart stores up wrath. Job 27:8 further anchors the theme by questioning the final hope of the godless when cut off.
Why it lands — The verse demands a reader examine their response to divine discipline, noting that the text states the godless "harbor resentment" and "do not cry for help" rather than attributing motives. It requires acknowledging that affliction is a call to supplication, not a trigger for defiance.
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
But the hypocrites in heart heap up wrath: they cry not when he bindeth them.
Cross-references
- Romans 2:5 But because of your hard and unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of wrath, when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.
- Job 27:8 For what is the hope of the godless when he is cut off, when God takes away his life?
- Job 36:8 And if men are bound with chains, caught in cords of affliction,
- Numbers 32:14 Now behold, you, a brood of sinners, have risen up in place of your fathers to further stoke the burning anger of the LORD against Israel.
- 2 Chronicles 28:13 “You must not bring the captives here,” they said, “for you are proposing to bring guilt upon us from the LORD and to add to our sins and our guilt. For our guilt is great, and fierce anger is upon Israel.”
- 2 Chronicles 28:22 In the time of his distress, King Ahaz became even more unfaithful to the LORD.
- Job 15:4 But you even undermine the fear of God and hinder meditation before Him.
- Job 35:9 Men cry out under great oppression; they plead for relief from the arm of the mighty.
- Psalms 107:10 Some sat in darkness and in the shadow of death, prisoners in affliction and chains,
- Matthew 22:12 ‘Friend,’ he asked, ‘how did you get in here without wedding clothes?’ But the man was speechless.