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You snatch me up into the wind and drive me before it; You toss me about in the storm.
Job 30:22 · Berean Standard Bible
Parallel translations
  • WEB You lift me up to the wind, and drive me with it. You dissolve me in the storm.
  • KJV Thou liftest me up to the wind; thou causest me to ride upon it, and dissolvest my substance.
  • NKJV You lift me up to the wind and cause me to ride on it; You spoil my success.
  • NASB “You lift me up to the wind and make me ride it; And You dissolve me in a storm.
  • NLT You throw me into the whirlwind and destroy me in the storm.

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 feels lifted into the wind and driven about, dissolved in the storm. It pictures his life as helplessly tossed and destroyed by overwhelming forces.

Overview

Job describes himself as a weightless thing caught up by the wind and scattered, melted away in the tempest of his troubles. The storm imagery conveys total loss of control and stability. Ironically, God will later answer Job out of a whirlwind, transforming the storm of his suffering into the place where he meets the Lord, a pattern fulfilled when Christ stills storms and brings peace to the troubled.

Cross-references & the web

Cross-references · 11

  • Job 27:21The east wind carries him away, and he is gone; it sweeps him out of his place.
  • Ps 1:4Not so the wicked! For they are like chaff driven off by the wind.
  • Job 9:17For He would crush me with a tempest and multiply my wounds without cause.
  • Job 21:18Are they like straw before the wind, like chaff swept away by a storm?
  • Hos 13:3Therefore they will be like the morning mist, like the early dew that vanishes, like chaff blown from a threshing floor, like smoke through an open window.
  • Hos 4:19The whirlwind has wrapped them in its wings, and their sacrifices will bring them shame.
  • Ezek 5:2When the days of the siege have ended, you are to burn up a third of the hair inside the city; you are also to take a third and slash it with the sword all around the city; and you are to scatter a third to the wind. For I will unleash a sword behind them.
  • Ps 18:10He mounted a cherub and flew; He soared on the wings of the wind.
  • Jer 4:11–12At that time it will be said to this people and to Jerusalem, “A searing wind from the barren heights in the desert blows toward the daughter of My people, but not to winnow or to sift;
  • Ps 104:3laying the beams of His chambers in the waters above, making the clouds His chariot, walking on the wings of the wind.
  • Isa 17:13The nations rage like the rush of many waters. He rebukes them, and they flee far away, driven before the wind like chaff on the hills, like tumbleweeds before a gale.

Resources, by level

Commentaries & study tools

  • VideoBibleProject — Job videosBibleProject · Lay · Free · evangelical

    Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.

  • VideoWatch teaching on Job 30:22YouTube · Lay · Free

    Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.

  • CommentaryEnduring Word — verse-by-verseDavid Guzik · Lay · Free · evangelical

    Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.

  • CommentaryClassic commentaries for this verseBibleHub (20+ works) · Pastoral · Free

    Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.

  • CommentaryMatthew Henry on JobMatthew Henry · Pastoral · Free · evangelical

    The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).

  • ReferenceInterlinear, lexicon & Strong'sBlue Letter Bible · Seminary · Free

    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 30:22 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.