Bible Strands
Job 21:18
Are they like straw before the wind, like chaff swept away by a storm?
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Job 21:18 occurs within Job’s speech to his three friends, where he challenges their assertion that God swiftly punishes the wicked. He speaks from a position of observing the wicked prosper, directly countering the traditional retribution theology his companions defend.
The words — The verse centers on ke./Te.ven (like straw) and Ru.ach (a wind), posing a rhetorical question about whether the wicked are like straw before the wind and chaff swept away by a storm.
The thread — This chaff-and-wind imagery appears in Psalms 1:4 and Psalms 83:13 to describe the wicked's present state or immediate fate, and recurs in Job 13:25 where Job questions whether God will frighten a windblown leaf or chase dry chaff.
Why it lands — The text presents the observable prosperity of the wicked before interpreting their ultimate fate, forcing a reader to reconcile lived experience with doctrinal claims. It asks a reader to abandon rigid formulas of retribution when empirical evidence contradicts them.
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
They are as stubble before the wind, and as chaff that the storm carrieth away.
Cross-references
- Psalms 1:4 Not so the wicked! For they are like chaff driven off by the wind.
- Psalms 83:13 Make them like tumbleweed, O my God, like chaff before the wind.
- Job 13:25 Would You frighten a windblown leaf? Would You chase after dry chaff?
- Psalms 35:5 May they be like chaff in the wind, as the angel of the LORD drives them away.
- Isaiah 17:13 The nations rage like the rush of many waters. He rebukes them, and they flee far away, driven before the wind like chaff on the hills, like tumbleweeds before a gale.
- Isaiah 29:5 But your many foes will be like fine dust, the multitude of the ruthless like blowing chaff. Then suddenly, in an instant,
- Jeremiah 13:24 “I will scatter you like chaff driven by the desert wind.
- Exodus 15:7 You overthrew Your adversaries by Your great majesty. You unleashed Your burning wrath; it consumed them like stubble.
- Isaiah 5:24 Therefore, as a tongue of fire consumes the straw, and as dry grass shrivels in the flame, so their roots will decay and their blossoms will blow away like dust; for they have rejected the instruction of the LORD of Hosts and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.
- Isaiah 40:24 No sooner are they planted, no sooner are they sown, no sooner have their stems taken root in the ground, than He blows on them and they wither, and a whirlwind sweeps them away like stubble.