Job 21:4-18
Expanded Bible
4 “My complaint is not just against people;
I have reason to be impatient.
5 Look at me and be ·shocked [desolated];
put your hand over your mouth in shock.
6 When I think about this [C the success of the wicked], I am terribly afraid
and ·my body shakes [L trembling seizes my flesh].
7 Why ·do evil people live a long time [L are evil people allowed to live]?
They grow old and ·become more powerful [increase in strength].
8 They see their children ·around [L established before] them;
they watch them grow up.
9 Their homes are safe and without fear;
·God does not punish them [L God’s rod is not on them].
10 Their bulls never fail to mate;
their cows ·have healthy calves [L calve and have no miscarriages].
11 They send out their ·children [infants] like a flock [C they will have many children, a sign of blessing];
their ·little ones [children] dance about.
12 They sing to the music of tambourines and ·harps [lyres],
and the sound of the flute makes them ·happy [rejoice].
13 Evil people ·enjoy successful lives [L live out their days in prosperity]
and then go ·peacefully [in tranquility] to ·the grave [L Sheol].
14 They say to God, ‘·Leave us alone [Get away from me]!
We don’t ·want [desire] to know your ways.
15 Who is ·the Almighty [Shaddai] that we should serve him?
What would we gain by ·praying to [interceding with] him?’
16 ·The success of the wicked is not their own doing [or Is not the success/prosperity of the wicked in their control/hand?].
Their ·way of thinking [plan; counsel] is ·different [far] from ·mine [or his; C that is, God’s].
17 Yet how often are the lamps of evil people ·turned off [extinguished; C the implied answer is not often; Job questions the type of teaching found in Proverbs; Prov. 24:19–20]?
How often does ·trouble [calamity] come to them [Prov. 24:21–22]?
How often ·do they suffer God’s angry punishment [L does he deal out pain in his anger]?
18 ·How often are they [or Let them be] like straw in the wind
or like chaff that is blown away by a storm [Ps. 1:4]?
Job 21:4-18
Amplified Bible
4
“As for me, is my complaint to man or about him?
And why should I not be impatient and my spirit troubled?
5
“Look at me and be astonished and appalled;
And put your hand over your mouth.
6
“Even when I remember, I am troubled and afraid;
Horror and trembling take hold of my flesh.
7
“Why do the wicked still live,
Become old, and become mighty in power?
8
“Their children and descendants are established with them in their sight,
And their offspring before their eyes.
9
“Their houses are safe from fear;
And the rod of God is not on them.
10
“His bull breeds and does not fail;
His cow calves and does not miscarry.
11
“They send forth their little ones like a flock,
And their children skip about.
12
“They lift up their voices and sing to the tambourine and the lyre
And rejoice to the sound of the flute.
13
“They fully enjoy their days in prosperity,
And so go down to Sheol (the nether world, the place of the dead) in a [peaceful] moment.
14
“Yet they say to God, ‘Depart from us,
For we do not desire the knowledge of Your ways.
15
‘Who [and what] is [a]the Almighty, that we should serve Him?
And what would we gain if we plead with Him?’(A)
16
“But notice, the prosperity of the wicked is not in their hand (in their power);
The counsel of the wicked [and the mystery of God’s dealings with the ungodly] is far from my comprehension.
17
“How often [then] is it that the lamp of the wicked is put out,
And that their disaster falls on them?
Does God distribute pain and destruction and sorrow [to them] in His anger?(B)
18
“Are they like straw before the wind,
And like chaff that the storm steals and carries away?
Footnotes
- Job 21:15 Heb Shaddai, also v 20.
The Expanded Bible, Copyright © 2011 Thomas Nelson Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2015 by The Lockman Foundation, La Habra, CA 90631. All rights reserved.
