His strength shall be hungerbitten, and destruction shall be ready at his side.
Parallel translations
- WEB His strength shall be famished. Calamity shall be ready at his side.
- BSB His strength is depleted, and calamity is 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 2:3And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.
- Ps 34:10The young lions do lack, and suffer hunger: but they that seek the LORD shall not want any good thing.
- 1 Th 5:3For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.
- 1 Sam 2:36And it shall come to pass, that every one that is left in thine house shall come and crouch to him for a piece of silver and a morsel of bread, and shall say, Put me, I pray thee, into one of the priests’ offices, that I may eat a piece of bread.
- Job 15:23–24He wandereth abroad for bread, saying, Where is it? he knoweth that the day of darkness is ready at his hand.
- 1 Sam 2:5They that were full have hired out themselves for bread; and they that were hungry ceased: so that the barren hath born seven; and she that hath many children is waxed feeble.
- Ps 109:10Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg: let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places.
- Isa 8:21And they shall pass through it, hardly bestead and hungry: and it shall come to pass, that when they shall be hungry, they shall fret themselves, and curse their king and their God, and look upward.
- Ps 7:12–14If he turn not, he will whet his sword; he hath bent his bow, and made it ready.
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 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.