Bible Strands
Job 6:27
You would even cast lots for an orphan and barter away your friend.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Job addresses his three friends during a tense exchange about his suffering. He confronts them for prioritizing rhetorical victory over ethical conduct.
The words — The Hebrew תַּפִּ֑ילוּ (ta.Pi.lu) literally means "you will make fall" or "cast lots," and תִכְר֗וּ (tikh.Ru) literally means "you may bargain." These verbs describe treating vulnerable people as transactional items.
The thread — The text links this behavior to systemic exploitation in Job 22:9, Job 24:3, and Job 24:9, where seizing pledges from the fatherless and widows is recorded as a repeated offense.
Why it lands — The verse states that arguments become corrupt when participants reduce people to bargaining chips. It requires readers to verify whether their pursuit of correctness compromises basic human dignity.
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
Yea, ye overwhelm the fatherless, and ye dig a pit for your friend.
Cross-references
- Job 22:9 You sent widows away empty-handed, and the strength of the fatherless was crushed.
- Job 24:3 They drive away the donkey of the fatherless and take the widow’s ox in pledge.
- Job 24:9 The fatherless infant is snatched from the breast; the nursing child of the poor is seized for a debt.
- Psalms 7:15 He has dug a hole and hollowed it out; he has fallen into a pit of his own making.
- Joel 3:3 They cast lots for My people; they bartered a boy for a prostitute and sold a girl for wine to drink.
- Nahum 3:10 Yet she became an exile; she went into captivity. Her infants were dashed to pieces at the head of every street. They cast lots for her dignitaries, and all her nobles were bound in chains.
- James 1:27 Pure and undefiled religion before our God and Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
- 2 Peter 2:3 In their greed, these false teachers will exploit you with deceptive words. The longstanding verdict against them remains in force, and their destruction does not sleep.
- Exodus 22:22 You must not mistreat any widow or orphan.
- Job 29:12 because I rescued the poor who cried out and the fatherless who had no helper.