Light is withheld from the wicked, and their upraised arm is broken.
Parallel translations
- WEB From the wicked, their light is withheld. The high arm is broken.
- KJV And from the wicked their light is withholden, and the high arm shall be broken.
- NKJV From the wicked their light is withheld, And the upraised arm is broken.
- NASB “Their light is withheld from the wicked, And the uplifted arm is broken.
- NLT The light disturbs the wicked and stops the arm that is raised in violence.
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
The light the wicked rely on, the darkness, is withheld, and their raised arm of violence is broken. God's order frustrates evildoers.
Overview
For the wicked, night is their working 'light,' and its removal by dawn cripples their power. The 'high arm,' a symbol of proud violence, is shattered. The verse continues the theme that God's governance of creation upholds justice and curbs evil.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 12
- Ps 10:15Break the arm of the wicked and evildoer; call him to account for his wickedness until none is left to be found.
- Ps 37:17For the arms of the wicked will be broken, but the LORD upholds the righteous.
- Job 18:5Indeed, the lamp of the wicked is extinguished; the flame of his fire does not glow.
- Prov 4:19But the way of the wicked is like the darkest gloom; they do not know what makes them stumble.
- Ezek 30:22Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: Behold, I am against Pharaoh king of Egypt. I will break his arms, both the strong one and the one already broken, and will make the sword fall from his hand.
- Job 18:18He is driven from light into darkness and is chased from the inhabited world.
- Job 5:14They encounter darkness by day and grope at noon as in the night.
- Exod 10:21–23Then the LORD said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand toward heaven, so that darkness may spread over the land of Egypt—a palpable darkness.”
- Jer 13:16Give glory to the LORD your God before He brings darkness, before your feet stumble on the dusky mountains. You wait for light, but He turns it into deep gloom and thick darkness.
- Isa 8:21–22They will roam the land, dejected and hungry. When they are famished, they will become enraged; and looking upward, they will curse their king and their God.
- 2 Kgs 6:18As the Arameans came down against him, Elisha prayed to the LORD, “Please strike these people with blindness.” So He struck them with blindness, according to the word of Elisha.
- Acts 13:10–11and said, “O child of the devil and enemy of all righteousness, you are full of all kinds of deceit and trickery! Will you never stop perverting the straight ways of the Lord?
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 38:15 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.