Skip to main content
Atlas of Saints

Job

Chapter 27 · Douay–Rheims / Challoner

En español →

Chapter XXVII · Location 27 of 42

Chapter 27 · Open to read

From Job · Douay–Rheims / Challoner (1749–1752)

What does Job Chapter 27 say, and which statements belong to its speaker?

Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary

Job swears to preserve innocence despite bitter suffering. He asks about the hypocrite’s hope and hearing and describes the violent man’s portion. His images include moth, booth, poverty, tempest and flight, without a narrated outcome.

Chapter breakdown

Job continues his parable with an oath by the living God, who has taken away his judgment and made his soul bitter. While breath remains and God's spirit is in his nostrils, he says his lips will not speak iniquity or his tongue lies. He refuses to justify his companions and says he will not depart from innocence until death; his heart does not reproach him through his life. He wishes his enemy and adversary reckoned ungodly and wicked.

Job asks what hope the hypocrite has if he takes by violence and God does not deliver his soul, whether God will hear his cry in distress, and whether he can delight in and always call upon God. He offers to teach what the Almighty has and asks why, knowing these things, his companions speak vainly.

In Job’s speech, he describes the wicked violent man's portion from God: if sons multiply, they face the sword; grandchildren will lack bread, survivors be buried in death and widows not weep. Silver amassed like earth and clothes prepared like clay will pass to the just and innocent. His house is as a moth and a keeper's booth. The rich man opens his eyes and finds nothing; poverty overtakes like water, a night tempest oppresses and a burning wind and whirlwind remove him. Job ends with casting without sparing, flight from the hand, clasped hands and hissing at the place. The final pronouns do not name an additional group of onlookers.

The story inside

Opening: Job swears to preserve innocence despite bitter suffering. Development: He asks about the hypocrite’s hope and hearing and describes the violent man’s portion. Conclusion: His images include moth, booth, poverty, tempest and flight, without a narrated outcome.

Lessons worth keeping

  1. 1
    Job swears to preserve innocence despite bitter suffering.
  2. 2
    He asks about the hypocrite’s hope and hearing and describes the violent man’s portion.
  3. 3
    His images include moth, booth, poverty, tempest and flight, without a narrated outcome.

Test your recall

Which images and requests does the speaker use, and what does the chapter leave unresolved?

Source edition and notes

Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.

  1. Lines 56296–56297

    My lips shall not speak iniquity, neither shall my tongue contrive lying.
  2. Lines 56299–56300

    God forbid that I should judge you to be just: till I die I will not depart from my innocence.
  3. Lines 56302–56303

    My justification, which I have begun to hold, I will not forsake: for my heart doth not reprehend me in all my life.
  4. Lines 56334–56335

    He shall prepare indeed, but the just man shall be clothed with it: and the innocent shall divide the silver.
  5. Lines 56337–56338

    He hath built his house as a moth, and as a keeper he hath made a booth.

Location: chapter 27 of 42 · 64%

Display settings