“What advice you have given to one without wisdom! What helpful insight you have abundantly provided!
Parallel translations
- WEB How have you counseled him who has no wisdom, and plentifully declared sound knowledge!
- KJV How hast thou counselled him that hath no wisdom? and how hast thou plentifully declared the thing as it is?
- BSB How you have counseled the unwise and provided fully sound insight!
- NKJV How have you counseled one who has no wisdom? And how have you declared sound advice to many?
- NLT How you have enlightened my stupidity! What wise advice you have offered!
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 mocks the great wisdom and knowledge Bildad supposedly shared. It matters because it underscores that the friends added nothing new.
Overview
Job continues his ironic rebuke, asking how Bildad has counseled the unwise and abundantly declared sound knowledge. In truth Bildad merely repeated familiar platitudes. Job's words expose the difference between hollow advice and the genuine wisdom that comes from God, ultimately revealed in Christ, the wisdom of God.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 14
- Job 15:8–10Have you heard the secret counsel of God? Do you limit wisdom to yourself?
- Ps 49:1–4For the Chief Musician. A Psalm by the sons of Korah. Hear this, all you peoples. Listen, all you inhabitants of the world,
- Job 17:10But as for you all, come on now again; I shall not find a wise man among you.
- Job 12:3But I have understanding as well as you; I am not inferior to you. Yes, who doesn’t know such things as these?
- Job 33:3My words shall utter the uprightness of my heart. That which my lips know they shall speak sincerely.
- Job 13:5Oh that you would be completely silent! Then you would be wise.
- Acts 20:20how I didn’t shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, teaching you publicly and from house to house,
- Ps 71:15–18My mouth will tell about your righteousness, and of your salvation all day, though I don’t know its full measure.
- Job 32:11–13“Behold, I waited for your words, and I listened for your reasoning, while you searched out what to say.
- Acts 20:27for I didn’t shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.
- Job 33:33If not, listen to me. Hold your peace, and I will teach you wisdom.”
- Prov 8:6–9Hear, for I will speak excellent things. The opening of my lips is for right things.
- Job 38:2“Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge?
- Job 6:13Isn’t it that I have no help in me, That wisdom is driven quite from me?
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
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 26:3 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.