Will You frighten a leaf driven to and fro? And will You pursue dry stubble?
Parallel translations
- WEB Will you harass a driven leaf? Will you pursue the dry stubble?
- KJV Wilt thou break a leaf driven to and fro? and wilt thou pursue the dry stubble?
- BSB Would You frighten a windblown leaf? Would You chase after dry chaff?
- NASB “Will You scare away a scattered leaf? Or will You pursue the dry chaff?
- NLT Would you terrify a leaf blown by the wind? Would you chase dry straw?
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
Job asks why God would pursue someone as frail as a wind-driven leaf. He feels too weak to be worth such opposition.
Overview
With the images of a driven leaf and dry stubble, Job marvels that God would harass one so fragile. He cannot understand why the Almighty would expend such force against so weak a creature. The verse expresses both his sense of frailty and his bewilderment at the intensity of his affliction.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 6
- Lev 26:36“‘As for those of you who are left, I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies. The sound of a driven leaf will put them to flight; and they shall flee, as one flees from the sword. They will fall when no one pursues.
- Job 21:18How often is it that they are as stubble before the wind, as chaff that the storm carries away?
- 1 Sam 24:14Against whom has the king of Israel come out? Whom do you pursue? A dead dog? A flea?
- Isa 17:13The nations will rush like the rushing of many waters: but he will rebuke them, and they will flee far off, and will be chased like the chaff of the mountains before the wind, and like the whirling dust before the storm.
- Matt 12:20He won’t break a bruised reed. He won’t quench a smoking flax, until he leads justice to victory.
- Job 14:3Do you open your eyes on such a one, and bring me into judgment with you?
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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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 13:25 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.