You will tell me of rich and wicked people whose houses have vanished because of their sins.
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?
- BSB For you say, ‘Where now is the nobleman’s house, and where are the tents in which the wicked dwell?’
- 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?’
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 8:22Those who hate you shall be clothed with shame. The tent of the wicked shall be no more.”
- Job 20:7yet he shall perish forever like his own dung. Those who have seen him shall say, ‘Where is he?’
- Job 31:37I would declare to him the number of my steps. as a prince would I go near to him.
- Hab 2:9–11Woe to him who gets an evil gain for his house, that he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the hand of evil!
- Zech 5:4I will cause it to go out,” says Yahweh of Armies, “and it will enter into the house of the thief, and into the house of him who swears falsely by my name; and it will remain in the middle of his house, and will destroy it with its timber and its stones.”
- Ps 37:36But he passed away, and behold, he was not. Yes, I sought him, but he could not be found.
- Num 16:26–34He spoke to the congregation, saying, “Depart, please, from the tents of these wicked men, and touch nothing of theirs, lest you be consumed in all their sins!”
- Ps 52:5–6God will likewise destroy you forever. He will take you up, and pluck you out of your tent, and root you out of the land of the living. Selah.
- Job 1:3His possessions also were seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, five hundred female donkeys, and a very great household; so that this man was the greatest of all the children 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.