I am ¹  a laughingstock ²  to my friends, ³  I, who called on God and whom he answered ⁴  – a righteous and blameless ⁵  man is a laughingstock!

biblegateway Job 12:4

"I am a joke to my friends, The one who called on God and He answered him; The just and blameless man is a joke.

I am a laughingstock to my friends, by calling on God, who answers me. The righteous and upright man is a laughingstock.

I am a laughingstock to my neighbors. I am one who calls on God and expects an answer. A man of integrity, a man who is righteous, has become a laughingstock.

biblegateway Job 12:4

"I have become a laughing-stock to my friends, though I called upon God and he answered—a mere laughing-stock, though righteous and blameless!

I am a laughingstock to my friends; I, who called to God and he answered me, a just and blameless man, am a laughingstock.

bibleoremus Job 12:4

I am a laughingstock to my friends; I, who called upon God and he answered me, a just and blameless man, I am a laughingstock.

Yet I am a laughing-stock to my friends -- a laughing-stock, though I am innocent and blameless: one that called upon God, but he afflicted me.

biblegateway Job 12:4

"I am one mocked by his friends, Who called on God, and He answered him, The just and blameless who is ridiculed.

I am [as] one mocked of his neighbour, who calleth upon God, and he answereth him: the just upright [man is] laughed to scorn.

biblegateway Job 12:4

I am ¹  a laughingstock ²  to my friends, ³  I, who called on God and whom he answered ⁴  – a righteous and blameless ⁵  man is a laughingstock!

¹ tn Some are troubled by the disharmony with “I am” and “to his friend.” Even though the difficulty is not insurmountable, some have emended the text. Some simply changed the verb to “he is,” which was not very compelling. C. D. Isbell argued that אֶהְיֶה (’ehyeh, “I am”) is an orthographic variant of יִהְיֶה (yihyeh, “he will”) – “a person who does not know these things would be a laughingstock” (JANESCU 37 [1978]: 227-36). G. R. Driver suggests the meaning of the MT is something like “(One that is) a mockery to his friend I am to be.”

² tn The word simply means “laughter”; but it can also mean the object of laughter (see Jer 20:7). The LXX jumps from one “laughter” to the next, eliminating everything in between, presumably due to haplography.

³ tn Heb “his friend.” A number of English versions (e.g., NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT) take this collectively, “to my friends.”

⁴ tn Heb “one calling to God and he answered him.” H. H. Rowley (Job [NCBC], 92) contends that because Job has been saying that God is not answering him, these words must be part of the derisive words of his friends.

⁵ tn The two words, צַדִּיק תָּמִים (tsadiq tamim), could be understood as a hendiadys (= “blamelessly just”) following W. G. E. Watson (Classical Hebrew Poetry, 327).