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Wednesday, August 13th, 2025
the Week of Proper 14 / Ordinary 19
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Read the Bible

New Revised Standard

Job 30:13

They break up my path, they promote my calamity; no one restrains them.

Bible Study Resources

Dictionaries:

- Holman Bible Dictionary - Job, the Book of;  

Encyclopedias:

- International Standard Bible Encyclopedia - Calamity;   Forward;   Mar;  

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
They tear up my path;they contribute to my destruction,without anyone to help them.
Hebrew Names Version
They mar my path, They set forward my calamity, Without anyone's help.
King James Version
They mar my path, they set forward my calamity, they have no helper.
English Standard Version
They break up my path; they promote my calamity; they need no one to help them.
New Century Version
They break up my road and work to destroy me, and no one helps me.
New English Translation
They destroy my path; they succeed in destroying me without anyone assisting them.
Amplified Bible
"They break up and clutter my path [upsetting my plans], They profit from my destruction; No one restrains them.
New American Standard Bible
"They break up my path, They promote my destruction; No one restrains them.
World English Bible
They mar my path, They set forward my calamity, Without anyone's help.
Geneva Bible (1587)
They haue destroyed my paths: they tooke pleasure at my calamitie, they had none helpe.
Legacy Standard Bible
They break up my path;They profit from my destruction;They have no helper.
Berean Standard Bible
They tear up my path; they profit from my destruction, with no one to restrain them.
Contemporary English Version
Without any help, they prevent my escape, destroying me completely
Complete Jewish Bible
breaking up my path, furthering my calamity — even those who have no one to help them.
Darby Translation
They mar my path, they set forward my calamity, without any to help them;
Easy-to-Read Version
They guard the road so that I cannot escape. They succeed in destroying me, without help from anyone.
George Lamsa Translation
They mar my paths without a cause, they rejoice for what has befallen me; they shall have no helper.
Good News Translation
They cut off my escape and try to destroy me; and there is no one to stop them.
Lexham English Bible
They destroy my path; they promote my destruction; they have no helper.
Literal Translation
They have broken down my path; they profit by my ruin; they have no helper.
Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
& my path haue they clene marred. It was so easy for them to do me harme, that they neded no man to helpe the.
American Standard Version
They mar my path, They set forward my calamity, Even men that have no helper.
Bible in Basic English
They have made waste my roads, with a view to my destruction; his bowmen come round about me;
JPS Old Testament (1917)
They break up my path, they further my calamity, even men that have no helper.
King James Version (1611)
They marre my path, they set forward my calamitie, they haue no helper.
Bishop's Bible (1568)
My pathes haue they cleane marred, it was so easye for them to do me harme, that they needed no man to help them.
Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
My paths are ruined; for they have stripped off my raiment: he has shot at me with his weapons.
English Revised Version
They mar my path, they set forward my calamity, even men that have no helper.
Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Thei destrieden my weies; thei settiden tresoun to me, and hadden the maistri; and `noon was that helpide.
Update Bible Version
They mar my path, They set forward my calamity, [Even] men that have no helper.
Webster's Bible Translation
They mar my path, they set forward my calamity, they have no helper.
New King James Version
They break up my path, They promote my calamity; They have no helper.
New Living Translation
They block my road and do everything they can to destroy me. They know I have no one to help me.
New Life Bible
They break up my path. They make trouble for me, and no one stops them.
J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
They brake up my path, - My engulfing ruin, they helped forward, unaided;
Douay-Rheims Bible
They have destroyed my ways, they have lain in wait against me, and they have prevailed, and there was none to help.
Revised Standard Version
They break up my path, they promote my calamity; no one restrains them.
Young's Literal Translation
They have broken down my path, By my calamity they profit, `He hath no helper.'
New American Standard Bible (1995)
"They break up my path, They profit from my destruction; No one restrains them.

Contextual Overview

1 "But now they make sport of me, those who are younger than I, whose fathers I would have disdained to set with the dogs of my flock. 2 What could I gain from the strength of their hands? All their vigor is gone. 3 Through want and hard hunger they gnaw the dry and desolate ground, 4 they pick mallow and the leaves of bushes, and to warm themselves the roots of broom. 5 They are driven out from society; people shout after them as after a thief. 6 In the gullies of wadis they must live, in holes in the ground, and in the rocks. 7 Among the bushes they bray; under the nettles they huddle together. 8 A senseless, disreputable brood, they have been whipped out of the land. 9 "And now they mock me in song; I am a byword to them. 10 They abhor me, they keep aloof from me; they do not hesitate to spit at the sight of me.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

they set forward: Psalms 69:26, Zechariah 1:15

Cross-References

Genesis 30:24
and she named him Joseph, saying, "May the Lord add to me another son!"
Genesis 30:25
When Rachel had borne Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, "Send me away, that I may go to my own home and country.
Genesis 35:26
The sons of Zilpah, Leah's maid: Gad and Asher. These were the sons of Jacob who were born to him in Paddan-aram.
Genesis 46:17
The children of Asher: Imnah, Ishvah, Ishvi, Beriah, and their sister Serah. The children of Beriah: Heber and Malchiel
Genesis 49:20
Asher's food shall be rich, and he shall provide royal delicacies.
Proverbs 31:28
Her children rise up and call her happy; her husband too, and he praises her:
Song of Solomon 6:9
My dove, my perfect one, is the only one, the darling of her mother, flawless to her that bore her. The maidens saw her and called her happy; the queens and concubines also, and they praised her.
Luke 1:48
for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;

Gill's Notes on the Bible

They mar my path,.... Hindered him in the exercise of religious duties; would not suffer him to attend the ways and worship of God, or to walk in the paths of holiness and righteousness; or they reproached his holy walk and conversation, and treated it with contempt, and triumphed over religion and godliness:

they set forward my calamity; added affliction to affliction, increased his troubles by their reproaches and calumnies, and were pleased with it, as if it was profitable as well as pleasurable to them, see Zechariah 1:15;

they have no helper; either no person of note to join them, and, to abet, assist, and encourage them; or they needed none, being forward enough of themselves to give him all the distress and disturbance they could, and he being so weak and unable to resist them; nor there is "no helper against them" q; none to take Job's part against them, and deliver him out of their hands, see Ecclesiastes 4:1.

q למו "adversus illos", Beza, Schmidt, Michaelis; so Noldius, p. 514.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

They mar my path - They break up all my plans. Perhaps here, also, the image is taken from war, and Job may represent himself as on a line of march, and he says that this rabble comes and breaks up his path altogether. They break down the bridges, and tear up the way, so that it is impossible to pass along. His plans of life were embarrassed by them, and they were to him a perpetual annoyance.

They set forward my calamity - Luther renders this part of the verse, “It was so easy for them to injure me, that they needed no help.” The literal translation of the Hebrew here would be, “they profit for my ruin;” that is, they bring as it were profit to my ruin; they help it on; they promote it. A similar expression occurs in Zechariah 1:15, “I was but a little displeased, and they helped forward the afliction;” that is, they aided in urging it forward. The idea here is, that they hastened his fall. Instead of assisting him in any way, they contributed all they could to bring him down to the dust.

They have no helper - Very various interpretations have been given of this phrase. It may mean, that they had done this alone, without the aid of others; or that they were persons who were held in abhorrence, and whom no one would assist; or that they were worthless and abandoned persons. Schultens has shown that the phrase, “one who has no helper,” is proverbial among the Arabs, and denotes a worthless person, or one of the lowest class. In proof of this, he quotes the Hamasa, which he thus translates, Videmus vos ignobiles, pauperes, quibus nullus ex reliquis hominibus adjutor. See, also, other similar expressions quoted by him from Arabic writings. The idea here then is, probably, that they were so worthless and abandoned that no one would help them - an expression denoting the utmost degradation.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Job 30:13. They mar my path — They destroy the way-marks, so that there is no safety in travelling through the deserts, the guide-posts and way-marks being gone.

These may be an allusion here to a besieged city: the besiegers strive by every means and way to distress the besieged; stopping up the fountains, breaking up the road, raising up towers to project arrows and stones into the city, called here raising up against it the ways of destruction, Job 30:12; preventing all succour and support.

They have no helper. — "There is not an adviser among them."-Mr. Good. There is none to give them better instruction.


 
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