Bible Strands
Job 21:34
So how can you comfort me with empty words? For your answers remain full of falsehood.”
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Job speaks to his three friends at the close of his chapter, rejecting their previous arguments after detailing the prosperity of the wicked. He addresses them directly as their counsel fails to match his observed reality.
The words — הָבֶל (Ha.vel) means vanity or emptiness, and תְּשׁוּבֹתֵיכֶם (te.shu.vo.tei./Khem) means your answers. The text states that his friends' responses remain in unfaithfulness (מָעַל, Ma.'al).
The thread — The accusation mirrors Job 16:2, where he labels them miserable comforters, and Job 13:4, where he calls them worthless physicians who smear with lies. Elihu later notes their failure to refute Job in Job 32:3.
Why it lands — The verse demands that readers test counsel by its fidelity to reality rather than its rhetorical familiarity. It requires abandoning rehearsed theology when it contradicts observable truth.
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
How then comfort ye me in vain, seeing in your answers there remaineth falsehood?
Cross-references
- Job 16:2 “I have heard many things like these; miserable comforters are you all.
- Job 13:4 You, however, smear with lies; you are all worthless physicians.
- 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.
- Job 42:7 After the LORD had spoken these words to Job, He said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “My wrath is kindled against you and your two friends. For you have not spoken about Me accurately, as My servant Job has.