Bible Strands
Job 5:2
For resentment kills a fool, and envy slays the simple.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Eliphaz addresses Job during a discourse on human vulnerability and divine justice, immediately following a rhetorical question about who will answer when one calls to the heavenly host.
The words — כֶּ֑עַשׂ (ka'as) = vexation and קִנְאָֽה (qin'ah) = jealousy, both naming emotional states that the text identifies as lethal to the foolish and the simple.
The thread — This pattern of destructive emotion appears in Ecclesiastes 7:9, which warns against quick provocation, and surfaces in Genesis 30:1 and 1 Samuel 18:8, where envy and resentment drive desperate or violent responses.
Why it lands — The verse requires readers to identify unchecked resentment and envy as self-eliminating forces, demanding immediate restraint before they destroy the very people they target.
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
For wrath killeth the foolish man, and envy slayeth the silly one.
Cross-references
- Ecclesiastes 7:9 Do not be quickly provoked in your spirit, for anger settles in the lap of a fool.
- Genesis 30:1 When Rachel saw that she was not bearing any children for Jacob, she envied her sister. “Give me children, or I will die!” she said to Jacob.
- 1 Samuel 18:8 And Saul was furious and resented this song. “They have ascribed tens of thousands to David,” he said, “but only thousands to me. What more can he have but the kingdom?”
- Job 18:4 You who tear yourself in anger—should the earth be forsaken on your account, or the rocks be moved from their place?
- Psalms 14:1 For the choirmaster. Of David. The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt; their acts are vile. There is no one who does good.
- Psalms 75:4 I say to the proud, ‘Do not boast,’ and to the wicked, ‘Do not lift up your horn.
- Psalms 92:6 A senseless man does not know, and a fool does not understand,
- Psalms 107:17 Fools, in their rebellious ways, and through their iniquities, suffered affliction.
- Proverbs 12:16 A fool’s anger is known at once, but a prudent man overlooks an insult.
- Hosea 7:11 So Ephraim has become like a silly, senseless dove—calling out to Egypt, then turning to Assyria.