Job 31:10

Then let my wife grind unto another, and let others bow down upon her.

King James Version · Read in your translation · Open the Explore console

Word by word — the Hebrew

Word	Hebrew	Strong’s	Meaning
wife	אִשְׁתִּ֑י 'ish.Ti	H802	a woman · noun, common feminine singular construct + pronominal suffix
grind	תִּטְחַ֣ן tit.Chan	H2912	to grind meal · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person feminine singular
another	לְאַחֵ֣ר le.'a.Cher	H312	properly · preposition + adjective, masculine singular absolute
others	אֲחֵרִֽין 'a.che.Rin	H312	properly · adjective, masculine plural absolute
down	יִכְרְע֥וּן yikh.re.'Un	H3766	to bend the knee · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural + paragogic nun

Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).

Cross-references

Jeremiah 8:10 Therefore will I give their wives unto others, and their fields to them that shall inherit them: for every one from the least even unto the…
Deuteronomy 28:30 Thou shalt betroth a wife, and another man shall lie with her: thou shalt build an house, and thou shalt not dwell therein: thou shalt plant…
2 Samuel 12:11 Thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house, and I will take thy wives before thine eyes, and give…
Isaiah 47:2 Take the millstones, and grind meal: uncover thy locks, make bare the leg, uncover the thigh, pass over the rivers.
Exodus 11:5 And all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sitteth upon his throne, even unto the firstborn of…
Hosea 4:13-14 They sacrifice upon the tops of the mountains, and burn incense upon the hills, under oaks and poplars and elms, because the shadow thereof…
Matthew 24:41 Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left.

Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).

Commentary

Matthew Henry on Job 31:9-15

Two more instances we have here of Job's integrity: - I. That he had a very great abhorrence of the sin of adultery. As he did not wrong his own marriage bed by keeping a concubine (he did not so much as think upon a maid, v. 1), so he was careful not to offer any injury to his neighbour's marriage bed. Let us see here, 1. How clear he was from this sin, Job 31:9. (1.) He did not so much as covet his neighbour's wife; for even his heart was not deceived by a woman. The beauty of another man's wife did not kindle in him any unchaste desires, nor was he ever moved by the allurements of an adulterous woman, such as is described, Pro 7:6, etc. See the original of all the defilements of the life…

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Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on Job 31:10

grind--turn the handmill. Be the most abject slave and concubine (Isa 47:2; Sa2 12:11).

John Gill on Job 31:10

Then let my wife grind unto another,.... Which some understand literally, of her being put to the worst of drudgery and slavery, to work at a mill, and grind corn for the service of a stranger, and be exposed to the company of the meanest of persons, and to their insults and abuses; as we find such as were taken captives and made prisoners by an enemy were put unto, as Samson, Judges 16:21; and it may be observed, that to grind in a mill was also the work of women, Exodus 11:5; as it was in early times; Homer (c) speaks of it as in times before him; but others take the words in a figurative sense, as if he imprecated that she lie with another man, and be defiled by him, as the Targum, Aben E…

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Keil & Delitzsch on Job 31:9-12

9 If my heart has been befooled about a woman, And if I lay in wait at my neighbour's door: 10 Let my wife grind unto another, And let others bow down over her. 11 For this is an infamous act, And this is a crime to be brought before judges; 12 Yea, it is a fire that consumeth to the abyss, And should root out all my increase. As he has guarded himself against defiling virgin innocence by lascivious glances, so is he also conscious of having made no attempt to trespass upon the marriage relationship of his neighbour (רע as in the Decalogue, Exo 20:17): his heart was not persuaded, or he did not allow his heart to be persuaded (נפתּה like πείθεσθαι), i.e., misled, on account of a woman (אשּׁ…

The Church Fathers

"Let my wife also be deceived by another," that my honor belongs to the devil, to whom we are agreeable in offending God, for he rejoices over our misfortune. "And let my children be despised by all; My actions or my imitators.
— Augustine of Hippo, ANNOTATIONS ON THE BOOK OF JOB (tr. J. Litteral, draft)

Then let my wife be a harlot unto another, and let others bow down upon her. And if he ever had done this thing, he prays for that sin to be turned into punishment to him. And because it is generally the case that that thing which in the doing of, we do not well consider how heinous it is, in the suffering it we do consider this; the force of that atrocity which, if he were guilty, he declares that he himself ought to undergo, he makes plain by expressing it...
— Gregory the Dialogist, Morals on the Book of Job, Book XXI

The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).

Dictionary and topics

Integrity · 16:19,20; — 16:19,20;
Lust · Evil — Evil

Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).

Job 31:10

Word by word — the Hebrew

Cross-references

Commentary

Matthew Henry on Job 31:9-15

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on Job 31:10

John Gill on Job 31:10

Keil & Delitzsch on Job 31:9-12

The Church Fathers

Dictionary and topics

Job 31:10

Word by word — the Hebrew

Cross-references

Commentary

Matthew Henry on Job 31:9-15

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on Job 31:10

John Gill on Job 31:10

Keil & Delitzsch on Job 31:9-12

The Church Fathers

Dictionary and topics

Tyndale Open Study Notes on Job 31:9-10

Rashi on Job 31:10