Job 21:18
18 How often are they like straw before the wind, like chaff swept away by a gale?
Other Translations of Job 21:18
King James Version
18 They are as stubble before the wind, and as chaff that the storm carrieth away.
English Standard Version
18 That they are like straw before the wind, and like chaff that the storm carries away?
The Message
18 How often are they blown away by bad luck? Not very often.
New King James Version
18 They are like straw before the wind, And like chaff that a storm carries away.
New Living Translation
18 Are they driven before the wind like straw? Are they carried away by the storm like chaff? Not at all!
Scripture quoted by permission. Quotations designated (NIV) are from THE HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica. All rights reserved worldwide.
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Matthew Henry's Commentary on Job 21:18
Commentary on Job 21:17-26
(Read Job 21:17-26)
Job had described the prosperity of wicked people; in these verses he opposes this to what his friends had maintained about their certain ruin in this life. He reconciles this to the holiness and justice of God. Even while they prosper thus, they are light and worthless, of no account with God, or with wise men. In the height of their pomp and power, there is but a step between them and ruin. Job refers the difference Providence makes between one wicked man and another, into the wisdom of God. He is Judge of all the earth, and he will do right. So vast is the disproportion between time and eternity, that if hell be the lot of every sinner at last, it makes little difference if one goes singing thither, and another sighing. If one wicked man die in a palace, and another in a dungeon, the worm that dies not, and the fire that is not quenched, will be the same to them. Thus differences in this world are not worth perplexing ourselves about.