God’s Word Translation
Job 21:18
18How often are they like straw in the wind or like husks that the 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
16Anyhow, isn’t their happiness in their own power? (The plan of the wicked is foreign to my way of thinking.) 17“How often is the lamp of the wicked snuffed out? How often does disaster happen to them? How often does an angry God give them pain? How often are they like straw in the wind or like husks that the storm sweeps away? 19“⌞You say,⌟ ‘God saves a person’s punishment for his children.’ God should pay back that person so that he would know that it is a punishment. 20His eyes should see his own ruin. He should drink from the wrath of the Almighty.
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 13:25Are you trying to make a fluttering leaf tremble or trying to chase dry husks?
- Exodus 15:7With your unlimited majesty, you destroyed those who attacked you. You sent out your burning anger. It burned them up like straw.
- Psalms 1:4Wicked people are not like that. Instead, they are like husks that the wind blows away.
- Psalms 35:5Let them be like husks blown by the wind as the Messenger of the Lord chases them.
- Psalms 83:13O my God, blow them away like tumbleweeds, like husks in the wind.
- Isaiah 5:24As flames burn up straw and dry grass shrivels in flames, so their roots will rot, and their blossoms will blow away like dust. They have rejected the teachings of the Lord of Armies and have despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.
- Isaiah 17:13The people will make noise like raging water. But the Lord will yell at them, and they will run far away. They will be chased away like husks on the mountains being blown by the wind, like whirling dust being blown by a storm.
- Isaiah 29:5Your many enemies will be like fine dust. Your many foes will be like husks blown by the wind. All of this will happen suddenly, unexpectedly.
- Isaiah 40:24They have hardly been planted. They have hardly been sown. They have hardly taken root in the ground. Then he blows on them and they wither, and a windstorm sweeps them away like straw.
- Isaiah 41:15“I am going to make you into a new threshing sledge with sharp, double-edged teeth. You will thresh the mountains and crush them to dust. You will turn the hills into straw.
- Jeremiah 13:24“I will scatter you like straw that is blown away by a desert wind.
- Hosea 13:3That is why they will be like fog in the morning and like morning dew that disappears quickly. They will be like straw blown away from threshing floors. They will be like smoke rising from chimneys.
- Nahum 1:10⌞The people of Nineveh will be⌟ like tangled thorns and like people drunk on their own drink. They will be completely burned up like very dry straw.
- Matthew 3:12His winnowing shovel is in his hand, and he will clean up his threshing floor. He will gather his wheat into a barn, but he will burn the husks in a fire that can never be put 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
God’s Word Translation — © 1995 God’s Word to the Nations Bible Society
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