Bible Strands
Job 15:30
He will not escape from the darkness; the flame will wither his shoots, and the breath of God’s mouth will carry him away.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Within a discourse on the fate of the wicked, the speaker pronounces judgment on the figure described in verses 29 and 31, declaring his inevitable ruin.
The words — חֹשֶׁךְ (cho.shekh) translates literally to darkness, and שַׁלְהָבֶת (shal.ha.vet) means a flame, both describing the instruments of his destruction.
The thread — The motifs of inescapable darkness and the breath of God consuming the wicked run through Job 4:9, Job 15:22, and Job 18:5.
Why it lands — It requires the reader to acknowledge that material wealth offers no protection against divine judgment, and that trusting in empty security is self-deception.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
He shall not depart out of darkness; the flame shall dry up his branches, and by the breath of his mouth shall he go away.
Cross-references
- Job 4:9 By the breath of God they perish, and by the blast of His anger they are consumed.
- Job 15:22 He despairs of his return from darkness; he is marked for the sword.
- Job 18:5 Indeed, the lamp of the wicked is extinguished; the flame of his fire does not glow.
- Job 20:26 Total darkness is reserved for his treasures. A fire unfanned will consume him and devour what is left in his tent.
- Matthew 25:41 Then He will say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
- Job 5:14 They encounter darkness by day and grope at noon as in the night.
- Job 10:21 before I go—never to return—to a land of darkness and gloom,
- Job 18:18 He is driven from light into darkness and is chased from the inhabited world.
- Job 22:20 ‘Surely our foes are destroyed, and fire has consumed their excess.’
- Isaiah 11:4 but with righteousness He will judge the poor, and with equity He will decide for the lowly of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of His mouth and slay the wicked with the breath of His lips.