For now ye are nothing; ye see my casting down, and are afraid.
Parallel translations
- WEB For now you are nothing. You see a terror, and are afraid.
- BSB For now you are of no help; you see terror, and you are afraid.
- NKJV For now you are nothing, You see terror and are afraid.
- NASB “Indeed, you have now become such, You see terrors and are afraid.
- NLT You, too, have given no help. You have seen my calamity, and you are afraid.
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 tells his friends they have now become nothing to him, seeing his terror and growing afraid. They have failed him by recoiling from his suffering.
Overview
Job makes the application plain: his friends, like the dried brook, have become useless, frightened off by the sight of his calamity. Fear of being associated with the afflicted has dried up their compassion. This exposes the cowardice that can lurk behind failed friendship, in stark contrast to Christ, who did not shrink from the suffering and the outcast but drew near to bear their burdens.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 14
- Ps 38:11My lovers and my friends stand aloof from my sore; and my kinsmen stand afar off.
- 2 Tim 4:16At my first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me: I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge.
- Jer 17:5–6Thus saith the LORD; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the LORD.
- Job 13:4But ye are forgers of lies, ye are all physicians of no value.
- Job 2:11–13Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this evil that was come upon him, they came every one from his own place; Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite: for they had made an appointment together to come to mourn with him and to comfort him.
- Rev 18:9–10And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning,
- Job 6:15My brethren have dealt deceitfully as a brook, and as the stream of brooks they pass away;
- Rev 18:17–18For in one hour so great riches is come to nought. And every shipmaster, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off,
- Isa 2:22Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils: for wherein is he to be accounted of?
- Jer 51:9We would have healed Babylon, but she is not healed: forsake her, and let us go every one into his own country: for her judgment reacheth unto heaven, and is lifted up even to the skies.
- Ps 62:9Surely men of low degree are vanity, and men of high degree are a lie: to be laid in the balance, they are altogether lighter than vanity.
- Matt 26:31Then saith Jesus unto them, All ye shall be offended because of me this night: for it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad.
- Matt 26:56But all this was done, that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled. Then all the disciples forsook him, and fled.
- Prov 19:7All the brethren of the poor do hate him: how much more do his friends go far from him? he pursueth them with words, yet they are wanting to him.
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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 6:21 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
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