He wandereth abroad for bread, saying, Where is it? he knoweth that the day of darkness is ready at his hand.
Parallel translations
- WEB He wanders abroad for bread, saying, ‘Where is it?’ He knows 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 59:15Let them wander up and down for meat, and grudge if they be not satisfied.
- Job 18:12His strength shall be hungerbitten, and destruction shall be ready at his side.
- Ps 109:10Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg: let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places.
- Amos 5:20Shall not the day of the LORD be darkness, and not light? even very dark, and no brightness in it?
- Eccl 11:8But if a man live many years, and rejoice in them all; yet let him remember the days of darkness; for they shall be many. All that cometh is vanity.
- Job 18:5–6Yea, the light of the wicked shall be put out, and the spark of his fire shall not shine.
- Heb 11:37–38They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented;
- Lam 5:6We have given the hand to the Egyptians, and to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread.
- Job 30:3–4For want and famine they were solitary; fleeing into the wilderness in former time desolate and waste.
- Heb 10:27But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.
- Gen 4:12When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.
- Joel 2:2A day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains: a great people and a strong; there hath not been ever the like, neither shall be any more after it, even to the years of many generations.
- Zeph 1:15That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness,
- Job 18:18He shall be driven from light into darkness, and chased out of the world.
- Lam 5:9We gat our bread with 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.