For you say, ‘Where now is the nobleman’s house, and where are the tents in which the wicked dwell?’
Parallel translations
- WEB For you say, ‘Where is the house of the prince? Where is the tent in which the wicked lived?’
- KJV For ye say, Where is the house of the prince? and where are the dwelling places of the wicked?
- NKJV For you say, ‘Where is the house of the prince? And where is the tent, The dwelling place of the wicked?’
- NASB “For you say, ‘Where is the house of the nobleman, And where is the tent, the dwelling places of the wicked?’
- NLT You will tell me of rich and wicked people whose houses have vanished because of their sins.
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 anticipates the friends asking, 'Where now is the house of the prince and the tent of the wicked?', expecting it to be destroyed. He quotes the argument they will use against him.
Overview
Job voices his friends' rhetorical question, which assumes the wicked's dwelling is always swept away as proof of judgment. He sets it up in order to refute it in the following verses. The exchange shows how proverbs and slogans, even true ones, can be misapplied to crush a suffering person rather than comfort him.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 9
- Job 8:22Your enemies will be clothed in shame, and the tent of the wicked will be no more.”
- Job 20:7he will perish forever, like his own dung; those who had seen him will ask, ‘Where is he?’
- Job 31:37I would give account of all my steps; I would approach Him like a prince.)—
- Hab 2:9–11Woe to him who builds his house by unjust gain, to place his nest on high and escape the hand of disaster!
- Zech 5:4I will send it out, declares the LORD of Hosts, and it will enter the house of the thief and the house of him who swears falsely by My name. It will remain inside his house and destroy it, down to its timbers and stones.”
- Ps 37:36yet he passed away and was no more; though I searched, he could not be found.
- Num 16:26–34And he warned the congregation, “Move away now from the tents of these wicked men. Do not touch anything that belongs to them, or you will be swept away because of all their sins.”
- Ps 52:5–6Surely God will bring you down to everlasting ruin; He will snatch you up and tear you away from your tent; He will uproot you from the land of the living. Selah
- Job 1:3and he owned 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, 500 female donkeys, and a very large number of servants. Job was the greatest man of all the people of the East.
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 21:28 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.