If He holds back the waters, they dry up, and if He releases them, they overwhelm the land.
Parallel translations
- WEB Behold, he withholds the waters, and they dry up. Again, he sends them out, and they overturn the earth.
- KJV Behold, he withholdeth the waters, and they dry up: also he sendeth them out, and they overturn the earth.
- NKJV If He withholds the waters, they dry up; If He sends them out, they overwhelm the earth.
- NASB “Behold, He restrains the waters, and they dry up; And He sends them out, and they inundate the earth.
- NLT If he holds back the rain, the earth becomes a desert. If he releases the waters, they flood the earth.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
God withholds the waters and they dry up, or releases them to flood the earth. Job shows God's mastery over nature.
Overview
Job points to God's control of drought and flood as evidence of His sovereign rule over creation. The LORD governs the forces of nature for His purposes, as seen in the flood and in His commands to wind and sea (Genesis 7; Mark 4:39-41). Such power is comforting, for the God who rules the storm is the same who calms it for His people in Christ.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 14
- 1 Kgs 17:1Now Elijah the Tishbite, who was among the settlers of Gilead, said to Ahab, “As surely as the LORD lives—the God of Israel before whom I stand—there will be neither dew nor rain in these years except at my word!”
- Amos 5:8He who made the Pleiades and Orion, who turns darkness into dawn and darkens day into night, who summons the waters of the sea and pours them over the face of the earth—the LORD is His name—
- Rev 11:6These witnesses have power to shut the sky so that no rain will fall during the days of their prophecy, and power to turn the waters into blood and to strike the earth with every kind of plague as often as they wish.
- Jas 5:17–18Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years.
- Gen 6:13Then God said to Noah, “The end of all living creatures has come before Me, because through them the earth is full of violence. Now behold, I will destroy both them and the earth.
- Ps 104:7–9At Your rebuke the waters fled; at the sound of Your thunder they hurried away—
- 1 Kgs 8:35–36When the skies are shut and there is no rain because Your people have sinned against You, and they pray toward this place and confess Your name, and they turn from their sins because You have afflicted them,
- Gen 6:17And behold, I will bring floodwaters upon the earth to destroy every creature under the heavens that has the breath of life. Everything on the earth will perish.
- Gen 7:11In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month, all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened.
- Luke 4:25But I tell you truthfully that there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and great famine swept over all the land.
- Jer 14:22Can the worthless idols of the nations bring rain? Do the skies alone send showers? Is this not by You, O LORD our God? So we put our hope in You, for You have done all these things.
- Job 12:10The life of every living thing is in His hand, as well as the breath of all mankind.
- Nah 1:4He rebukes the sea and dries it up; He makes all the rivers run dry. Bashan and Carmel wither, and the flower of Lebanon wilts.
- Deut 11:17or the anger of the LORD will be kindled against you. He will shut the heavens so that there will be no rain, nor will the land yield its produce, and you will soon perish from the good land that the LORD is giving you.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.
Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.
Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
Job's cry for a mediator who can lay his hand on both God and man, and his confidence that 'my Redeemer lives' and will stand on the earth, reaches forward to Jesus the living Redeemer.
How Job 12:15 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.