Christian Standard Bible
Job 21:18
18Are they like straw before the wind, like chaff a storm sweeps away?
Job 21:18 in other versions
- King James Version (KJV)They are as stubble before the wind, and as chaff that the storm carrieth away.
- New International Version (NIV)How often are they like straw before the wind, like chaff swept away by a gale?
- English Standard Version (ESV)That they are like straw before the wind, and like chaff that the storm carries away?
- New King James Version (NKJV)They are like straw before the wind, And like chaff that a storm carries away.
Context of Job 21:18
16But their prosperity is not of their own doing. The counsel of the wicked is far from me! 17How often is the lamp of the wicked put out? Does disaster come on them? Does he apportion destruction in his anger? Are they like straw before the wind, like chaff a storm sweeps away? 19God reserves a person’s punishment for his children. Let God repay the person himself, so that he may know it. 20Let his own eyes see his demise; let him drink from the Almighty’s wrath!
Read all of Job 21Job 21:18 word by word
יִהְי֗וּ כְּתֶ֥בֶן לִפְנֵי־ר֑וּחַ וּ֝כְמֹ֗ץ גְּנָבַ֥תּוּ סוּפָֽה׃Read the interlinear
Words taken from the KJV.
Cross-references for Job 21:18
- Job 13:25Will you frighten a wind-driven leaf? Will you chase after dry straw?
- Exodus 15:7You overthrew your adversaries by your great majesty. You unleashed your burning wrath; it consumed them like stubble.
- Psalms 1:4The wicked are not like this; instead, they are like chaff that the wind blows away.
- Psalms 35:5Let them be like chaff in the wind, with the angel of the Lord driving them away.
- Psalms 83:13Make them like tumbleweed, my God, like straw before the wind.
- Isaiah 5:24Therefore, as a tongue of fire consumes straw and as dry grass shrivels in the flame, so their roots will become like something rotten and their blossoms will blow away like dust, for they have rejected the instruction of the Lord of Armies, and they have despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.
- Isaiah 17:13The nations rage like the rumble of a huge torrent. He rebukes them, and they flee far away, driven before the wind like chaff on the hills and like tumbleweeds before a gale.
- Isaiah 29:5Your many foes will be like fine dust, and many of the ruthless, like blowing chaff. Then suddenly, in an instant,
- Isaiah 40:24They are barely planted, barely sown, their stem hardly takes root in the ground when he blows on them and they wither, and a whirlwind carries them away like stubble.
- Isaiah 41:15See, I will make you into a sharp threshing board, new, with many teeth. You will thresh mountains and pulverize them and make hills into chaff.
- Jeremiah 13:24I will scatter you like drifting chaff before the desert wind.
- Hosea 13:3Therefore, they will be like the morning mist, like the early dew that vanishes, like chaff blown from a threshing floor, or like smoke from a window.
- Nahum 1:10For they will be consumed like entangled thorns, like the drink of a drunkard and like straw that is fully dry.
- Matthew 3:12His winnowing shovel is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn. But the chaff he will burn with fire that never goes out.”
Commentaries on Job 21:18
- Adam Clarke Bible Commentary · v. 18They are as stubble before the wind - "His fan is in his hand; he will thoroughly cleanse his floor, and the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire. Therefore the wicked shall not stand in the judgment, but shall be like the chaff which the wind driveth away." Were not this a common thought, I should have supposed that the author of this book borrowed it from Psalm 1:4. The original signifies that they shall be carried away by a furious storm; and…Read the comment
- Barnes’ Notes on the Bible · v. 18They are as stubble before the wind - According to the interpretation proposed of the previous verse, this may be read as a question, “How often is it that the wicked are made like stubble? You say that God deals with people exactly according to their characters, and that the wicked are certainly subjected to calamities; but how often does this, in fact, occur? Is it a uniform law? Do they not, in fact, live in prosperity, and arrive at a good old age?”…Read the comment
- Matthew Henry Concise Commentary · v. 17-26Verses 17-26 Job had described the prosperity of wicked people; in these verses he opposes this to what his friends had maintained about their certain ruin in this life. He reconciles this to the holiness and justice of God. Even while they prosper thus, they are light and worthless, of no account with God, or with wise men. In the height of their pomp and power, there is but a step between them and ruin. Job refers the difference Providence makes between…Read the comment
- Jamieson–Fausset–Brown Commentary · v. 1818. Job alludes to a like sentiment of Bildad (Job 18:18), using his own previous words (Job 13:25).Read the comment
Topics related to Job 21:18
In the dictionaries
Commentaries on Job 21
- Adam Clarke Bible Commentary
- Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
- Matthew Henry Concise Commentary
- Tyndale Open Study Notes
- Jamieson–Fausset–Brown Commentary
- Rashi on Tanakh
- Keil & Delitzsch Commentary
- John Wesley’s Notes
- Darby Translation Notes
- Geneva Bible Translation Notes
- Kingcomments
- Matthew Henry’s Complete Commentary
- Matthew Henry’s Modern English Commentary
- Scofield Reference Notes, 1917 Edition
- Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary
- EGW Writings
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