Bible Strands
Job 31:40
then let briers grow instead of wheat and stinkweed instead of barley.” Thus conclude the words of Job.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Job delivers his final declaration of innocence to God, immediately following his defense against exploiting tenant farmers and their harvests. He speaks at the close of his thirty-first chapter oath, pronouncing a self-curse over agricultural injustice.
The words — תַּ֤חַת (Ta.chat) translates literally as "in place of," and חִטָּ֨ה (chi.Tah) means "wheat," structuring the curse that cultivated grain will be displaced by wild growth.
The thread — The displacement of cultivated crops with thorns and briers recurs in Genesis 3:17 as the ground's curse and Isaiah 7:23 as a judgment marker. The closing formula parallels Psalms 72:20, serving as a formal marker of a completed speech.
Why it lands — The text requires readers to confront the concrete consequences of stealing labor and the inevitability of divine audit. It demands a plain acknowledgment that moral exploitation will yield its own ruin.
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
Let thistles grow instead of wheat, and cockle instead of barley. The words of Job are ended.
Cross-references
- Genesis 3:17 And to Adam He said: “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat, cursed is the ground because of you; through toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.
- Psalms 72:20 Thus conclude the prayers of David son of Jesse.
- Isaiah 7:23 And on that day, in every place that had a thousand vines worth a thousand shekels of silver, only briers and thorns will be found.
- Zephaniah 2:9 Therefore, as surely as I live,” declares the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, “surely Moab will be like Sodom and the Ammonites like Gomorrah—a place of weeds and salt pits, a perpetual wasteland. The remnant of My people will plunder them; the remainder of My nation will dispossess them.”
- Malachi 1:3 but Esau I have hated, and I have made his mountains a wasteland and left his inheritance to the desert jackals.”