Lectionary Calendar
Sunday, September 14th, 2025
the Week of Proper 19 / Ordinary 24
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Read the Bible

Literal Standard Version

Job 30:13

They have broken down my path, || They profit by my calamity: He has no helper.

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.
New Revised Standard
They break up my path, they promote my calamity; no one restrains 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"And now, laughed at me, || Have the younger in days than I, || Whose fathers I have loathed to set || With the dogs of my flock. 2Also—the power of their hands, why [is it] to me? On them old age has perished. 3With want and with harsh famine, || They are gnawing a dry place [in] the recent night, || [In] desolation and ruin, 4Those cropping mallows near a shrub, || And their food [is] root of broom trees. 5They are cast out from the midst || (They shout against them as a thief), 6To dwell in a frightful place of valleys, || Holes of earth and clefts. 7They groan among shrubs, || They are gathered together under nettles. 8Sons of folly—even sons without name, || They have been struck from the land. 9And now, I have been their song, || And I am to them for a byword. 10They have detested me, || They have kept far from me, || And from before me have not spared to spit.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

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

Cross-References

Genesis 30:24
and she calls his name Joseph, saying, "YHWH is adding to me another son."
Genesis 30:25
And it comes to pass, when Rachel has borne Joseph, that Jacob says to Laban, "Send me away, and I go to my place, and to my land;
Genesis 35:26
And sons of Zilpah, Leah's maidservant: Gad and Asher. These [are] sons of Jacob, who have been born to him in Padan-Aram.
Genesis 46:17
And sons of Asher: Jimnah, and Ishuah, and Isui, and Beriah, and their sister Serah. And sons of Beriah: Heber and Malchiel.
Genesis 49:20
Out of Asher his bread [is] fat; And he gives delicacies of a king.
Proverbs 31:28
Her sons have risen up, and pronounce her blessed, || Her husband, and he praises her,
Song of Solomon 6:9
One is my dove, my perfect one, || She [is] one of her mother, || She [is] the choice one of her that bore her, || Daughters saw, and pronounce her blessed, || Queens and concubines, and they praise her.
Luke 1:48
Because He looked on the lowliness of His maidservant, || For behold, from now on all the 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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