“How long will you speak these things? Shall the words of your mouth be a mighty wind?
Parallel translations
- KJV How long wilt thou speak these things? and how long shall the words of thy mouth be like a strong wind?
- BSB “How long will you go on saying such things? The words of your mouth are a blustering wind.
- NKJV “How long will you speak these things, And the words of your mouth be like a strong wind?
- NASB “How long will you say these things, And the words of your mouth be a mighty wind?
- NLT “How long will you go on like this? You sound like a blustering wind.
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 rebukes Job, asking how long he will speak such things, calling his words a mighty but empty wind. He dismisses Job's lament as mere bluster.
Overview
Bildad opens harshly, treating Job's anguished words as windy and worthless. His impatience reveals the friends' failure to truly comfort. While Job's complaints were indeed strong, Bildad mistakes honest lament for empty noise, modeling how not to respond to a suffering brother (compare Romans 12:15).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 12
- Job 15:2“Should a wise man answer with vain knowledge, and fill himself with the east wind?
- Job 6:26Do you intend to reprove words, since the speeches of one who is desperate are as wind?
- 1 Kgs 19:11He said, “Go out, and stand on the mountain before Yahweh.” Behold, Yahweh passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains, and broke in pieces the rocks before Yahweh; but Yahweh was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake; but Yahweh was not in the earthquake.
- Exod 10:3Moses and Aaron went in to Pharaoh, and said to him, “This is what Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews, says: ‘How long will you refuse to humble yourself before me? Let my people go, that they may serve me.
- Job 7:11“Therefore I will not keep silent. I will speak in the anguish of my spirit. I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.
- Job 6:9even that it would please God to crush me; that he would let loose his hand, and cut me off!
- Job 11:2–3“Shouldn’t the multitude of words be answered? Should a man full of talk be justified?
- Job 18:2“How long will you hunt for words? Consider, and afterwards we will speak.
- Job 16:3Shall vain words have an end? Or what provokes you that you answer?
- Prov 1:22“How long, you simple ones, will you love simplicity? How long will mockers delight themselves in mockery, and fools hate knowledge?
- Exod 10:7Pharaoh’s servants said to him, “How long will this man be a snare to us? Let the men go, that they may serve Yahweh, their God. Don’t you yet know that Egypt is destroyed?”
- Job 19:2–3“How long will you torment me, and crush me with words?
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 8:2 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.