“Do you intend to rebuke my words, When the words of one in despair belong to the wind?
Parallel translations
- WEB Do you intend to reprove words, since the speeches of one who is desperate are as wind?
- KJV Do ye imagine to reprove words, and the speeches of one that is desperate, which are as wind?
- BSB Do you intend to correct my words, and treat as wind my cry of despair?
- NKJV Do you intend to rebuke my words, And the speeches of a desperate one, which are as wind?
- NLT Do you think your words are convincing when you disregard my cry of desperation?
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 asks if they mean to correct mere words, treating the speech of a desperate man as wind. He protests that they seize on his anguished words rather than help him.
Overview
Job objects that his friends are nitpicking the words of a man in despair, as though such words were weighty doctrine rather than the gusts of pain. He pleads for mercy toward speech wrung out by suffering. This calls for gentleness with the grieving, the same tenderness Christ shows in not breaking the bruised reed or quenching the smoldering wick of a hurting soul.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 16
- Job 8:2“How long will you speak these things? Shall the words of your mouth be a mighty wind?
- Matt 12:37For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”
- Eph 4:14that we may no longer be children, tossed back and forth and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in craftiness, after the wiles of error;
- Job 10:1“My soul is weary of my life. I will give free course to my complaint. I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.
- Job 42:3You asked, ‘Who is this who hides counsel without knowledge?’ therefore I have uttered that which I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I didn’t know.
- Job 4:3–4Behold, you have instructed many, you have strengthened the weak hands.
- Job 2:10But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. What? Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?” In all this Job didn’t sin with his lips.
- Job 34:3–9For the ear tries words, as the palate tastes food.
- Hos 12:1Ephraim feeds on wind, and chases the east wind. He continually multiplies lies and desolation. They make a covenant with Assyria, and oil is carried into Egypt.
- Job 6:4For the arrows of the Almighty are within me. My spirit drinks up their poison. The terrors of God set themselves in array against me.
- Job 40:5I have spoken once, and I will not answer; Yes, twice, but I will proceed no further.”
- Job 3:3–26“Let the day perish in which I was born, the night which said, ‘There is a boy conceived.’
- Job 40:8Will you even annul my judgment? Will you condemn me, that you may be justified?
- Job 42:7It was so, that after Yahweh had spoken these words to Job, Yahweh said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “My wrath is kindled against you, and against your two friends; for you have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job has.
- Job 38:2“Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge?
- Job 6:9even that it would please God to crush me; that he would let loose his hand, and cut me off!
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 6:26 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.