New International Version
Job 21:18
18How often are they like straw before the wind, like chaff swept away by a gale?
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.
- 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.
- New Living Translation (NLT)Are they driven before the wind like straw? Are they carried away by the storm like chaff? Not at all!
Context of Job 21:18
16But their prosperity is not in their own hands, so I stand aloof from the plans of the wicked. 17“Yet how often is the lamp of the wicked snuffed out? How often does calamity come upon them, the fate God allots in his anger? How often are they like straw before the wind, like chaff swept away by a gale? 19It is said, ‘God stores up the punishment of the wicked for their children.’ Let him repay the wicked, so that they themselves will experience it! 20Let their own eyes see their destruction; let them drink the cup of 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 13:25Will you torment a windblown leaf? Will you chase after dry chaff?
- Exodus 15:7“In the greatness of your majesty you threw down those who opposed you. You unleashed your burning anger; it consumed them like stubble.
- Psalms 1:4Not so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away.
- Psalms 35:5May they be like chaff before the wind, with the angel of the Lord driving them away;
- Psalms 83:13Make them like tumbleweed, my God, like chaff before the wind.
- Isaiah 5:24Therefore, as tongues of fire lick up straw and as dry grass sinks down in the flames, so their roots will decay and their flowers blow away like dust; for they have rejected the law of the Lord Almighty and spurned the word of the Holy One of Israel.
- Isaiah 17:13Although the peoples roar like the roar of surging waters, when he rebukes them they flee far away, driven before the wind like chaff on the hills, like tumbleweed before a gale.
- Isaiah 29:5But your many enemies will become like fine dust, the ruthless hordes like blown chaff. Suddenly, in an instant,
- Isaiah 40:24No sooner are they planted, no sooner are they sown, no sooner do they take root in the ground, than he blows on them and they wither, and a whirlwind sweeps them away like chaff.
- Isaiah 41:15“See, I will make you into a threshing sledge, new and sharp, with many teeth. You will thresh the mountains and crush them, and reduce the hills to chaff.
- Jeremiah 13:24“I will scatter you like chaff driven by the desert wind.
- Hosea 13:3Therefore they will be like the morning mist, like the early dew that disappears, like chaff swirling from a threshing floor, like smoke escaping through a window.
- Nahum 1:10They will be entangled among thorns and drunk from their wine; they will be consumed like dry stubble.
- Matthew 3:12His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”
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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