While the shoots are still uncut, they dry up quicker than grass.
Parallel translations
- WEB While it is yet in its greenness, not cut down, it withers before any other reed.
- KJV Whilst it is yet in his greenness, and not cut down, it withereth before any other herb.
- NKJV While it is yet green and not cut down, It withers before any other plant.
- NASB “While it is still green and not cut down, Yet it withers before any other plant.
- NLT While they are still flowering, not ready to be cut, they begin to wither more quickly than grass.
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
Bildad notes that such reeds wither faster than any plant even while still green and uncut. Sudden collapse illustrates the fate he assigns the godless.
Overview
The marsh reed, deprived of water, dries up swiftly even in its prime. Bildad uses this to picture how quickly the prosperity of those who forget God can vanish. The observation contains real truth about the fragility of a life without God, even as Bildad wrongly aims it at the suffering Job.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 5
- Jer 17:6He will be like a shrub in the desert; he will not see when prosperity comes. He will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives.
- Matt 13:20The seed sown on rocky ground is the one who hears the word and at once receives it with joy.
- Jas 1:10–11But the one who is rich should exult in his low position, because he will pass away like a flower of the field.
- Ps 129:6–7May they be like grass on the rooftops, which withers before it can grow,
- 1 Pet 1:24For, “All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall,
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 8:12 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.