Shall vain words have an end? or what emboldeneth thee that thou answerest?
Parallel translations
- WEB Shall vain words have an end? Or what provokes you that you answer?
- BSB Is there no end to your long-winded speeches? What provokes you to continue testifying?
- NKJV Shall words of wind have an end? Or what provokes you that you answer?
- NASB “Is there no end to windy words? Or what provokes you that you answer?
- NLT Won’t you ever stop blowing hot air? What makes you keep on talking?
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 whether their empty words will ever stop and what compels them to keep answering. He challenges the endlessness of their fault-finding.
Overview
Turning the friends' own complaint back on them, Job questions what provokes their relentless speeches of wind. He finds their words vain and their persistence inexplicable. The reproach exposes how easily counselors keep talking past a sufferer's real need, a contrast to the patient, listening love that Scripture commends.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 8
- Job 6:26Do ye imagine to reprove words, and the speeches of one that is desperate, which are as wind?
- Job 15:2Should a wise man utter vain knowledge, and fill his belly with the east wind?
- Titus 2:8Sound speech, that cannot be condemned; that he that is of the contrary part may be ashamed, having no evil thing to say of you.
- Matt 22:46And no man was able to answer him a word, neither durst any man from that day forth ask him any more questions.
- Job 20:3I have heard the check of my reproach, and the spirit of my understanding causeth me to answer.
- Job 8:2How long wilt thou speak these things? and how long shall the words of thy mouth be like a strong wind?
- Titus 1:11Whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre’s sake.
- Job 32:3–6Also against his three friends was his wrath kindled, because they had found no answer, and yet had condemned Job.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Commentaries & study tools
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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 16:3 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.