Bible Strands
Job 16:3
Is there no end to your long-winded speeches? What provokes you to continue testifying?
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Job addresses his friends in direct response to their prolonged, unhelpful counsel, demanding they stop their monologues. The words — קֵץ (ketz) literally means "end," while דִבְרֵי־רוּחַ (divrei-ruach) translates to "words of wind," describing their speech as empty and directionless. The thread — This motif of wind representing futile speech appears in Job 6:26, Job 15:2, and Job 8:2, where blustering words are contrasted with genuine counsel. Why it lands — The verse demands that a reader stop valuing rhetorical volume over substance and recognize when prolonged speaking serves only to exhaust rather than heal.
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
Shall vain words have an end? or what emboldeneth thee that thou answerest?
Cross-references
- Job 6:26 Do you intend to correct my words, and treat as wind my cry of despair?
- Job 15:2 “Does a wise man answer with empty counsel or fill his belly with the hot east wind?
- Job 8:2 “How long will you go on saying such things? The words of your mouth are a blustering wind.
- Job 20:3 I have heard a rebuke that insults me, and my understanding prompts a reply.
- Job 32:3 and he burned with anger against Job’s three friends because they had failed to refute Job, and yet had condemned him.
- Matthew 22:46 No one was able to answer a word, and from that day on no one dared to question Him any further.
- Titus 1:11 who must be silenced. For the sake of dishonorable gain, they undermine entire households and teach things they should not.
- Titus 2:8 and wholesome speech that is above reproach, so that anyone who opposes us will be ashamed, having nothing bad to say about us.