They are soaked by mountain showers, and they huddle against the rocks for want of a home.
Parallel translations
- WEB They are wet with the showers of the mountains, and embrace the rock for lack of a shelter.
- KJV They are wet with the showers of the mountains, and embrace the rock for want of a shelter.
- BSB Drenched by mountain rains, they huddle against the rocks for want of shelter.
- NKJV They are wet with the showers of the mountains, And huddle around the rock for want of shelter.
- NASB “They are wet from the mountain rains, And they hug the rock for lack of a shelter.
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
Drenched by mountain rains, the poor cling to rocks for shelter. It matters because they lack even a roof over their heads.
Overview
Job portrays the homeless poor soaked by storms, hugging the rocks because they have no shelter. The vivid image conveys utter exposure and abandonment. Such suffering moves the heart of God, who in Christ identified with the homeless, having nowhere to lay His head (Matt. 8:20).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 3
- Lam 4:5Those who fed delicately are desolate in the streets: Those who were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills.
- Song 5:2I was asleep, but my heart was awake. It is the voice of my beloved who knocks: “Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled; for my head is filled with dew, and my hair with the dampness of the night.”
- Heb 11:38(of whom the world was not worthy), wandering in deserts, mountains, caves, and the holes of the earth.
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 24:8 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.