His strength is depleted, and calamity is ready at his side.
Parallel translations
- WEB His strength shall be famished. Calamity shall be ready at his side.
- KJV His strength shall be hungerbitten, and destruction shall be ready at his side.
- NKJV His strength is starved, And destruction is ready at his side.
- NASB “His strength is famished, And disaster is ready at his side.
- NLT Hunger depletes their strength, and calamity waits for them to stumble.
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's strength is famished, and calamity stands ready to strike him. His vigor fails as disaster waits.
Overview
Bildad pictures the godless weakened by hunger or want, with destruction poised at his side to seize him. The image conveys a man depleted and on the brink of ruin. This relentless portrait of the wicked's downfall serves Bildad's argument, yet ironically describes the outward state of Job, whom the book declares righteous, exposing the friends' error.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 9
- 2 Pet 2:3In their greed, these false teachers will exploit you with deceptive words. The longstanding verdict against them remains in force, and their destruction does not sleep.
- Ps 34:10Young lions go lacking and hungry, but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing.
- 1 Th 5:3While people are saying, “Peace and security,” destruction will come upon them suddenly, like labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.
- 1 Sam 2:36And everyone left in your house will come and bow down to him for a piece of silver or a morsel of bread, pleading, “Please appoint me to some priestly office so that I can eat a piece of bread.”’”
- Job 15:23–24He wanders about as food for vultures; he knows the day of darkness is at hand.
- 1 Sam 2:5The well-fed hire themselves out for food, but the starving hunger no more. The barren woman gives birth to seven, but she who has many sons pines away.
- Ps 109:10May his children wander as beggars, seeking sustenance far from their ruined homes.
- Isa 8:21They will roam the land, dejected and hungry. When they are famished, they will become enraged; and looking upward, they will curse their king and their God.
- Ps 7:12–14If one does not repent, God will sharpen His sword; He has bent and strung His bow.
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 18:12 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.