then let briers grow instead of wheat and stinkweed instead of barley.” Thus conclude the words of Job.
Parallel translations
- WEB let briers grow instead of wheat, and stinkweed instead of barley.” The words of Job are ended.
- KJV Let thistles grow instead of wheat, and cockle instead of barley. The words of Job are ended.
- NKJV Then let thistles grow instead of wheat, And weeds instead of barley.” The words of Job are ended.
- NASB May the thorn-bush grow instead of wheat, And stinkweed instead of barley.” The words of Job are ended.
- NLT then let thistles grow on that land instead of wheat, and weeds instead of barley.” Job’s words are ended.
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 concludes his oath: if guilty, let thorns grow instead of wheat and weeds instead of barley. With this his words are ended.
Overview
Job closes his great defense by accepting that his fields should yield only thorns and stinkweed if he has sinned, echoing the curse on the ground after the fall. The narrator marks the formal end of Job's words, his case now fully laid before God. The reversal of the curse, where the ground that bore thorns is finally redeemed, comes through Christ, who wore the crown of thorns to bear the curse on our behalf.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 5
- Ps 72:20Thus conclude the prayers of David son of Jesse.
- Zeph 2:9Therefore, as surely as I live,” declares the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, “surely Moab will be like Sodom and the Ammonites like Gomorrah—a place of weeds and salt pits, a perpetual wasteland. The remnant of My people will plunder them; the remainder of My nation will dispossess them.”
- Isa 7:23And on that day, in every place that had a thousand vines worth a thousand shekels of silver, only briers and thorns will be found.
- Gen 3:17–18And to Adam He said: “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat, cursed is the ground because of you; through toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.
- Mal 1:3but Esau I have hated, and I have made his mountains a wasteland and left his inheritance to the desert jackals.”
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 31:40 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.