Verse Lens · Concise explanation
Job 16:5 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 5. 5But I would strengthen you with my mouth, and the moving of my lips should asswage your grief.
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Quick Meaning
Job 16:5 closes the thought unit with the words “But I would strengthen you with my mouth, and the moving of my lips should asswage your grief.” Job turns or qualifies the speech with “But I would strengthen you with my mouth, and the moving of my lips should asswage your grief” inside Job Names the Friends Miserable Comforters.
Read It With
- Job 16:1–16:5
Read Job 16:5 with 16:1–16:5. Read alone, “But I would strengthen you with my mouth, and the moving of my lips should asswage your grief” could lose its speaker, the question or claim it develops, and the unit's outcome. The complete movement establishes: Job says he has heard such speeches before, calls the friends burdensome comforters, and says he could either imitate or strengthen them if positions were reversed.
Why This Verse Appears Here
Job names Eliphaz's renewed accusation miserable comfort and contrasts it with the strengthening speech he could have offered. Within that relationship, Job 16:5 closes the thought unit through “But I would strengthen you with my mouth, and the moving of my lips should asswage your grief.”
Read Job 16:1–5 together
Why these verses belong together: Job 16:1–16:5 follows the pinned KJV paragraphing and holds together one sustained speech movement: “Job Names the Friends Miserable Comforters.” The next unit begins with a new stanza, question sequence, scene, speaker response, or rhetorical turn.
Verse 1. 1 Then Job answered and said,
Verse 2. 2 I have heard many such things: miserable comforters are ye all.
Verse 3. 3 Shall vain words have an end? or what emboldeneth thee that thou answerest?
Verse 4. 4 I also could speak as ye do: if your soul were in my soul’s stead, I could heap up words against you, and shake mine head at you.
Verse 5. 5 But I would strengthen you with my mouth, and the moving of my lips should asswage your grief.
What Remains True
Job says he has heard such speeches before, calls the friends burdensome comforters, and says he could either imitate or strengthen them if positions were reversed. Honest lament, grief, protest, and need can remain inside sustained relationship without being silenced by a demand for quick explanations. Job 16:5 carries that bounded truth through “But I would strengthen you with my mouth, and the moving of my lips should asswage your grief.”
How It Can Shape Life
- Make room for the speech and emotion preserved in Job 16:1–16:5; listen before explaining, do not coerce closure or silence protest, and pair companionship with the practical care the situation requires. Preserve this unit-specific boundary in the action: Job's contrast exposes harmful speech without requiring polished words from the suffering person; critique should still resist humiliation and retaliation. The verse-specific evidence to retain is “But I would strengthen you with my mouth, and the moving of my lips should asswage your grief.”
Continue in Context
The full thought-unit study remains the final contextual authority for this Verse Lens.
Read Job 16:1–16:5 — Job Names the Friends Miserable ComfortersSources used for this Verse Lens
How certain is this explanation? strong
These are the sources used directly for this lens. Language, grammar, disagreements, and the complete source shelf remain attached to the full thought-unit research record.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact displayed KJV wording, verse order, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and complete thought-unit coverage.
Exact location: Job 16:1–16:5, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM-derived repository corpus
Open source ↗hebrew text and morphology
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: Job
Open Scriptures
Open Scriptures, release 2.2
Supports: Masoretic Hebrew wording and morphology checked at the exact unit without treating morphology as a complete apparatus or interpretation.
Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Job.xml, OSIS 16:1–16:5
Open the fixed Hebrew Job file ↗translation and translator notes
NET Bible First Edition Notes: Job
Biblical Studies Press
Biblical Studies Press, 2006; current official PDF
Supports: Verse-level controls for Job's difficult Hebrew, syntax, older KJV language, textual issues, speech boundaries, and alternatives in Job 16:1–16:5.
Exact location: Official NET Job PDF, exact translator, study, and textual notes attached to Job 16:1–16:5
Open the official NET Job PDF ↗