You whose garments are hot When the land is still because of the south wind?
Parallel translations
- WEB You whose clothing is warm, when the earth is still by reason of the south wind?
- KJV How thy garments are warm, when he quieteth the earth by the south wind?
- BSB You whose clothes get hot when the land lies hushed under the south wind,
- NKJV Why are your garments hot, When He quiets the earth by the south wind?
- NLT When you are sweltering in your clothes and the south wind dies down and everything is still,
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
Elihu asks Job, who can barely cope with the sweltering heat of a south wind, how he could presume to instruct God. Human frailty is meant to humble him.
Overview
Elihu points to Job's own bodily experience of heat as evidence of his weakness. If a person is mastered by the weather, how can he sit in judgment over the One who governs it? The verse drives home creaturely limitation as a ground for reverence rather than argument.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 4
- Job 38:31“Can you bind the cluster of the Pleiades, or loosen the cords of Orion?
- Job 6:17In the dry season, they vanish. When it is hot, they are consumed out of their place.
- Luke 12:55When a south wind blows, you say, ‘There will be a scorching heat,’ and it happens.
- Ps 147:18He sends out his word, and melts them. He causes his wind to blow, and the waters flow.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.
Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.
Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
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 37:17 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.