Atlas Biblica

    Job · 34 verses

    Job 21

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    A vigorous man with a well-nourished body and a bitter man who never tasted prosperity are laid together in the dust, with worms covering them both.

    Job asks for the floorvv. 1–6

    Job asks his hearers to let his speech be their consolation, a wonderfully austere arrangement in which he may speak first and be mocked afterwards. His complaint is not against a man, he says, and remembering it makes his body tremble.

    The wicked prosper rather noisilyvv. 7–22

    Job asks why the wicked live on, grow old, and increase in power. Their homes are safe, their cattle breed, their children skip and make music, and they go down to Sheol in peace. They even tell God to leave them alone, while Job refuses their counsel. The proposed punishments are no more dependable: are the wicked really swept away like chaff, or does disaster reliably arrive?

    Two deaths, one dustvv. 23–34

    Job sets a vigorous, secure man beside one who dies bitter and deprived. Their lives have been poles apart; their grave is not. He then turns on the thoughts of his hearers, who ask where the wicked man's house has gone, pointing instead to travellers' reports: the evil man is spared the day of calamity, carried to the grave, and watched at his tomb. Such answers, Job says, offer comfort made of emptiness and falsehood.

    The text

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    Berean Standard Bible, public domain. Names the Hebrew and Greek put in the verse link to the person, place or people they name; the address beside each verse is a link to that verse, which is what a reader copies and shares.

    1. Job 21:1Then Job answered:

    2. Job 21:2“Listen carefully to my words; let this be your consolation to me.

    3. Job 21:3Bear with me while I speak; then, after I have spoken, you may go on mocking.

    4. Job 21:4Is my complaint against a man? Then why should I not be impatient?

    5. Job 21:5Look at me and be appalled; put your hand over your mouth.

    6. Job 21:6When I remember, terror takes hold, and my body trembles in horror.

    7. Job 21:7Why do the wicked live on, growing old and increasing in power?

    8. Job 21:8Their descendants are established around them, and their offspring before their eyes.

    9. Job 21:9Their homes are safe from fear; no rod of punishment from God is upon them.

    10. Job 21:10Their bulls breed without fail; their cows bear calves and do not miscarry.

    11. Job 21:11They send forth their little ones like a flock; their children skip about,

    12. Job 21:12singing to the tambourine and lyre and making merry at the sound of the flute.

    13. Job 21:13They spend their days in prosperity and go down to Sheol in peace.

    14. Job 21:14Yet they say to God: ‘Leave us alone! For we have no desire to know Your ways.

    15. Job 21:15Who is the Almighty, that we should serve Him, and what would we gain if we pray to Him?’

    16. Job 21:16Still, their prosperity is not in their own hands, so I stay far from the counsel of the wicked.

    17. Job 21:17How often is the lamp of the wicked put out? Does disaster come upon them? Does God, in His anger, apportion destruction?

    18. Job 21:18Are they like straw before the wind, like chaff swept away by a storm?

    19. Job 21:19It is said that God lays up one’s punishment for his children. Let God repay the man himself, so he will know it.

    20. Job 21:20Let his eyes see his own destruction; let him drink for himself the wrath of the Almighty.

    21. Job 21:21For what does he care about his household after him, when the number of his months has run out?

    22. Job 21:22Can anyone teach knowledge to God, since He judges those on high?

    23. Job 21:23One man dies full of vigor, completely secure and at ease.

    24. Job 21:24His body is well nourished, and his bones are rich with marrow.

    25. Job 21:25Yet another man dies in the bitterness of his soul, having never tasted prosperity.

    26. Job 21:26But together they lie down in the dust, and worms cover them both.

    27. Job 21:27Behold, I know your thoughts full well, the schemes by which you would wrong me.

    28. Job 21:28For you say, ‘Where now is the nobleman’s house, and where are the tents in which the wicked dwell?’

    29. Job 21:29Have you never asked those who travel the roads? Do you not accept their reports?

    30. Job 21:30Indeed, the evil man is spared from the day of calamity, delivered from the day of wrath.

    31. Job 21:31Who denounces his behavior to his face? Who repays him for what he has done?

    32. Job 21:32He is carried to the grave, and watch is kept over his tomb.

    33. Job 21:33The clods of the valley are sweet to him; everyone follows behind him, and those before him are without number.

    34. Job 21:34So how can you comfort me with empty words? For your answers remain full of falsehood.”

    01 — Also here

    Who else the chapter reaches

    Names written in the English are linked in the text above. These are the ones that are not: an entity the Hebrew or Greek names under a spelling the translation does not use, or one reached only by an assertion about a verse of this chapter.

    Reached by an assertion Atlas extracted from a verse of this chapter rather than by a name written in it — a pronoun, a title, or a participant the sentence carries without naming. This layer is model-read and measured at 88.6–90.3% precision, and it is kept separate from the names above for that reason.

    02 — Read alongside

    Where this is echoed

    Readers' own connections, from OpenBible's crowd-voted cross-references — agreement about relevance, and not scholarly confidence. 294 passages were voted onto 33 verses of this chapter; the 16 shown lead on votes, and each is listed at the verse it was voted onto most strongly.

    • 7Psalms 73:3–12For I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
    • 15Exodus 5:2But Pharaoh replied, “Who is the LORD that I should obey His voice and let Israel go? I do not know the LORD, and I will not let Israel go.”
    • 14Job 22:17They said to God, ‘Depart from us. What can the Almighty do to us?’
    • 30Proverbs 16:4The LORD has made everything for His purpose—even the wicked for the day of disaster.
    • 7Job 12:6The tents of robbers are safe, and those who provoke God are secure—those who carry their god in their hands.
    • 18Psalms 1:4Not so the wicked! For they are like chaff driven off by the wind.
    • 19Exodus 20:5You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on their children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me,
    • 22Romans 11:34“Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been His counselor?”
    • 5Judges 18:19“Be quiet,” they told him. “Put your hand over your mouth and come with us and be a father and a priest to us. Is it better for you to be a priest for the house of one person or a priest for a tribe and family in Israel?”
    • 5Job 29:9The princes refrained from speaking and covered their mouths with their hands.
    • 5Job 40:4“Behold, I am insignificant. How can I reply to You? I place my hand over my mouth.
    • 7Jeremiah 12:1–3Righteous are You, O LORD, when I plead before You. Yet about Your judgments I wish to contend with You: Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all the faithless live at ease?
    • 7Psalms 37:35I have seen a wicked, ruthless man flourishing like a well-rooted native tree,
    • 15Job 34:9For he has said, ‘It profits a man nothing that he should delight in God.’
    • 16Job 22:18But it was He who filled their houses with good things; so I stay far from the counsel of the wicked.
    • 16Psalms 1:1Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, or set foot on the path of sinners, or sit in the seat of mockers.

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