Limitless Word
When it is warm, they cease to flow; When it is hot, they vanish from their place.
Job 6:17 · New King James Version
Parallel translations
  • WEB In the dry season, they vanish. When it is hot, they are consumed out of their place.
  • KJV What time they wax warm, they vanish: when it is hot, they are consumed out of their place.
  • BSB but ceasing in the dry season and vanishing from their channels in the heat.
  • NASB “When they dry up, they vanish; When it is hot, they disappear from their place.
  • NLT But when the hot weather arrives, the water disappears. The brook vanishes in the heat.

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

In the dry season the brooks vanish and are consumed by the heat. It shows the stream disappearing exactly when water is most needed.

Overview

Job continues the wadi image: when summer heat comes the streams evaporate and are gone. The timing is the sting, for they fail in the very season of need. So his friends, like the stream, offer nothing when his thirst for comfort is greatest, a contrast to the Lord who is a shade and refuge in the day of scorching trouble, fully revealed in Christ.

Cross-references & the web

Cross-references · 2

  • Job 24:19Drought and heat consume the snow waters, so does Sheol those who have sinned.
  • 1 Kgs 17:1Elijah the Tishbite, who was one of the settlers of Gilead, said to Ahab, “As Yahweh, the God of Israel, lives, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word.”

Themes, concepts, people & topics

Topics (1)

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 6:17YouTube · 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 6:17 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.