They are like straw before the wind, And like chaff that a storm carries away.
Parallel translations
- WEB How often is it that they are as stubble before the wind, as chaff that the storm carries away?
- KJV They are as stubble before the wind, and as chaff that the storm carrieth away.
- BSB Are they like straw before the wind, like chaff swept away by a storm?
- NASB “Are they as straw before the wind, And like chaff which the storm carries away?
- NLT Are they driven before the wind like straw? Are they carried away by the storm like chaff? Not at all!
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 continues questioning how often the wicked are really swept away like straw before the wind. He doubts the friends' confident picture of swift judgment.
Overview
The images of stubble and chaff scattered by the storm are common biblical pictures of the wicked's ultimate end (Ps 1:4; Ps 83:13). Job's point is about timing: such judgment is not as immediate or universal in this life as his friends insist. The certainty of final judgment remains, but its earthly visibility is partial.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 14
- Ps 1:4The wicked are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind drives away.
- Ps 83:13My God, make them like tumbleweed; like chaff before the wind.
- Ps 35:5Let them be as chaff before the wind, Yahweh’s angel driving them on.
- Job 13:25Will you harass a driven leaf? Will you pursue the dry stubble?
- Isa 17:13The nations will rush like the rushing of many waters: but he will rebuke them, and they will flee far off, and will be chased like the chaff of the mountains before the wind, and like the whirling dust before the storm.
- Isa 29:5But the multitude of your foes will be like fine dust, and the multitude of the ruthless ones like chaff that blows away. Yes, it will be in an instant, suddenly.
- Jer 13:24“Therefore I will scatter them, as the stubble that passes away, by the wind of the wilderness.
- Nah 1:10For entangled like thorns, and drunken as with their drink, they are consumed utterly like dry stubble.
- Isa 5:24Therefore as the tongue of fire devours the stubble, and as the dry grass sinks down in the flame, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust; because they have rejected the law of Yahweh of Armies, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.
- Matt 3:12His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will thoroughly cleanse his threshing floor. He will gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn up with unquenchable fire.”
- Exod 15:7In the greatness of your excellency, you overthrow those who rise up against you. You send out your wrath. It consumes them as stubble.
- Hos 13:3Therefore they will be like the morning mist, and like the dew that passes away early, like the chaff that is driven with the whirlwind out of the threshing floor, and like the smoke out of the chimney.
- Isa 40:24They are planted scarcely. They are sown scarcely. Their stock has scarcely taken root in the ground. He merely blows on them, and they wither, and the whirlwind takes them away as stubble.
- Isa 41:15–16Behold, I have made you into a new sharp threshing instrument with teeth. You will thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and will make the hills like chaff.
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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 21:18 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
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