He wanders abroad for bread, saying, ‘Where is it?’ He knows that the day of darkness is ready at his hand.
Parallel translations
- KJV He wandereth abroad for bread, saying, Where is it? he knoweth that the day of darkness is ready at his hand.
- BSB He wanders about as food for vultures; he knows the day of darkness is at hand.
- NKJV He wanders about for bread, saying, ‘Where is it?’ He knows that a day of darkness is ready at his hand.
- NASB “He wanders about for food, saying, ‘Where is it?’ He knows that a day of darkness is at hand.
- NLT They wander around, saying, ‘Where can I find bread?’ They know their day of destruction is near.
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
The wicked man wanders in want, scavenging for bread, knowing a day of darkness is at hand. He lives in insecurity and impending doom.
Overview
Eliphaz pictures the godless reduced to homeless hunger, conscious that disaster is ready to overtake him. The reversal from prosperity to destitution dramatizes divine judgment on sin. The portrait is theologically sound regarding the ultimate fate of the unrepentant, but unjust as a diagnosis of Job, whose losses are part of a contest in heaven he cannot see.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 15
- Ps 59:15They shall wander up and down for food, and wait all night if they aren’t satisfied.
- Job 18:12His strength shall be famished. Calamity shall be ready at his side.
- Ps 109:10Let his children be wandering beggars. Let them be sought from their ruins.
- Amos 5:20Won’t the day of Yahweh be darkness, and not light? Even very dark, and no brightness in it?
- Eccl 11:8Yes, if a man lives many years, let him rejoice in them all; but let him remember the days of darkness, for they shall be many. All that comes is vanity.
- Job 18:5–6“Yes, the light of the wicked shall be put out, The spark of his fire shall not shine.
- Heb 11:37–38They were stoned. They were sawn apart. They were tempted. They were slain with the sword. They went around in sheep skins and in goat skins; being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated
- Lam 5:6We have given the hand to the Egyptians, To the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread.
- Job 30:3–4They are gaunt from lack and famine. They gnaw the dry ground, in the gloom of waste and desolation.
- Heb 10:27but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and a fierceness of fire which will devour the adversaries.
- Gen 4:12From now on, when you till the ground, it won’t yield its strength to you. You will be a fugitive and a wanderer in the earth.”
- Joel 2:2A day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness. As the dawn spreading on the mountains, a great and strong people; there has never been the like, neither will there be any more after them, even to the years of many generations.
- Zeph 1:15That day is a day of wrath, a day of distress and anguish, a day of trouble and ruin, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and blackness,
- Job 18:18He shall be driven from light into darkness, and chased out of the world.
- Lam 5:9We get our bread at the peril of our lives, Because of the sword of the wilderness.
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 15:23 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.