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Amplified Bible
Job 21:34
Bible Study Resources
Concordances:
- Nave'sDictionaries:
- CharlesEncyclopedias:
- InternationalParallel Translations
So how can you offer me such futile comfort?Your answers are deceptive.
So how can you comfort me with nonsense, Seeing that in your answers there remains only falsehood?"
How then comfort ye me in vain, seeing in your answers there remaineth falsehood?
How then will you comfort me with empty nothings? There is nothing left of your answers but falsehood."
"So how can you comfort me with this nonsense? Your answers are only lies!"
So how can you console me with your futile words? Nothing is left of your answers but deception!"
"So how dare you give me empty comfort? For your answers remain nothing but falsehood!"
So how can you comfort me with nonsense, Seeing that in your answers there remains only falsehood?"
How then comfort ye me in vaine, seeing in your answeres there remaine but lyes?
How then will you vainly comfort me,Indeed when your answers remain full of falsehood?"
So how can you comfort me with empty words? For your answers remain full of falsehood."
But empty, meaningless words are the comfort you offer me.
"Why offer me such meaningless comfort? Of your answers, only the perfidy remains."
How then comfort ye me in vain? Your answers remain perfidious.
"So your empty words are no comfort to me. There is no truth at all in your answers!"
How then can you comfort me in vain, seeing that your abominable answers are multiplied before me?
And you! You try to comfort me with nonsense! Every answer you give is a lie!
So how will you comfort me with emptiness, when fraud is left in your answers?"
How then do you comfort me with vanity? Yea, in your answers remains treachery.
O how vayne is the comforte yt ye geue me? Are not youre answeres cleane contrary to right and treuth?
How then comfort ye me in vain, Seeing in your answers there remaineth only falsehood?
Why then do you give me comfort with words in which there is no profit, when you see that there is nothing in your answers but deceit?
How then comfort ye me in vain? And as for your answers, there remaineth only faithlessness?
How then comfort ye me in vaine, seeing in your answeres there remaineth falshood?
Howe vayne then is the comfort that ye geue me, seyng falshood remayneth in all your aunsweres?
How then do ye comfort me in vain? whereas I have no rest from your molestation.
How then comfort ye me in vain, seeing in your answers there remaineth only falsehood?
Hou therfor coumforten ye me in veyn, sithen youre answeris ben schewid to `repugne to treuthe?
How then do you comfort me in vain, Seeing in your answers there remains [only] falsehood?
How then comfort ye me in vain, seeing in your answers there remaineth falsehood?
How then can you comfort me with empty words, Since falsehood remains in your answers?"
"How can your empty clichés comfort me? All your explanations are lies!"
How then can you comfort me with foolish words? Your answers are full of lies."
How then will you comfort me with empty nothings? There is nothing left of your answers but falsehood."
How then should ye comfort me with vanity, since, as for your replies, there lurketh, in them treachery?
How then do ye comfort me in vain, whereas your answer is shewn to be repugnant to truth?
How then will you comfort me with empty nothings? There is nothing left of your answers but falsehood."
And how do ye comfort me [with] vanity, And in your answers hath been left trespass?
"So how do you expect me to get any comfort from your nonsense? Your so-called comfort is a tissue of lies."
"How then will you vainly comfort me, For your answers remain full of falsehood?"
Contextual Overview
Bible Verse Review
from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge
comfort: Job 16:2
seeing: Job 13:4, Job 32:3, Job 42:7
falsehood: Heb. transgression
Reciprocal: Job 6:25 - what doth Job 36:4 - my Daniel 5:10 - let not Zechariah 10:2 - they comfort
Cross-References
Now Abraham journeyed from there toward the Negev (the South country), and settled between Kadesh and Shur; then he lived temporarily in Gerar.
"For we are sojourners before You, and tenants, as all our fathers were; our days on the earth are like a shadow, and there is no hope [of remaining].
"Hear my prayer, O LORD, and listen to my cry; Do not be silent at my tears; For I am Your temporary guest, A sojourner like all my fathers.
By faith he lived as a foreigner in the promised land, as in a strange land, living in tents [as nomads] with Isaac and Jacob, who were fellow heirs of the same promise.
All these died in faith [guided and sustained by it], without receiving the [tangible fulfillment of God's] promises, only having seen (anticipated) them and having welcomed them from a distance, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.
Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers [in this world] to abstain from the sensual urges [those dishonorable desires] that wage war against the soul.
Gill's Notes on the Bible
How then comfort ye me in vain,.... This is the conclusion Job draws from the above observations: his friends came to comfort him, and they took methods for it, as they thought, but miserable comforters were they all; what they administered for comfort was in vain, and to no purpose; nor could any be expected from them, on the plan upon which they proceeded; they suggested he was a bad man, because of his afflictions, and they exhorted him to repentance and reformation, and then promised him happiness and prosperity upon it; which could not be expected, as appeared from the face of things in Providence; since, according to the above instances and proofs, wicked men enjoy prosperity, and good men had usually a great share of adversity:
seeing in your answers there remaineth falsehood; all their replies to Job were filled with these intimations and suggestions, that wicked men were only and always afflicted; or if they were at any time in prosperity, it was but for a little while; that good men were seldom or never afflicted, at least as Job was, or but a little afflicted, and for a little while: now Job had proved the contrary to all this, and therefore no consolation could be hoped for from men that held such tenets; comfort only springs from truth, and not falsehood; a man that speaks the truths, or delivers out the truths of God's word, he speaks to comfort and edification; but he that brings nothing but error and falsehood can never be the means and instrument of true solid comfort to any. Job having thus fully proved his point, and confuted the notions of his friends, it might have been thought they would have sat down in silence, and made no further answer; but Eliphaz rises up a third time, and makes a reply, as follows.
Barnes' Notes on the Bible
How then comfort ye me in vain ... - That is, how can you be qualified to give me consolation in my trials, who have such erroneous views of the government and dealings of God? True consolation could be founded only on correct views of the divine government; but such views, Job says, they had not. With their conceptions of the divine administration, they could not administer to him any real consolation. We may learn hence,
(1) That all real consolation in trial must be based on correct apprehensions of the divine character and plans. Falsehood, delusion, error, can give no permanent comfort.
(2) They whose office it is to administer consolation to the afflicted, should seek after the “truth” about God and his government.
They should endeavor to learn why he afflicts people, what purpose he proposes to accomplish, and what are the proper ends of trial. They should have an unwavering conviction that he is right, and should see as far as possible “why” he is right, before they attempt to comfort others. Their own souls should be imbued with the fullest conviction that all the ways of God are holy, and then they should go and endeavor to pour their convictions into other hearts, and make them feel so too. A minister of the gospel, who has unsettled, erroneous, or false views of the character and government of God, is poorly qualified for his station, and will be a “miserable comforter” to those who are in trial. Truth alone sustains the soul in affliction. Truth only can inspire confidence in God. Truth only can break the force of sorrow, and enable the sufferer to look up to God and to heaven with confidence and joy.
(The end of Part One of the Commentary on Job)
Clarke's Notes on the Bible
Verse Job 21:34. How then comfort ye me in vain — Mr. Good translates: "How vainly then would ye make me retract!" See the note on Job 21:2. I cannot retract any thing I have said, as I have proved by fact and testimony that your positions are false and unfounded. Your pretensions to comfort me are as hollow as the arguments you bring in support of your exceptionable doctrines.
THIS chapter may be called Job's triumph over the insinuated calumnies, and specious but false doctrines, of his opponents. The irritability of his temper no longer appears: from the time he got that glorious discovery of his Redeemer, and the JOYOUS hope of an eternal inheritance, Job 19:25, c., we find no more murmurings, nor unsanctified complainings. He is now full master of himself and reasons conclusively, because he reasons coolly. Impassioned transports no longer carry him away: his mind is serene; his heart, fixed; his hope, steady; and his faith, strong. Zophar the Naamathite is now, in his presence, as an infant in the gripe of a mighty giant. Another of these pretended friends but real enemies comes forward to renew the attack with virulent invective, malevolent insinuation, and unsupported assertion. Him, Job meets, and vanquishes by pious resignation and fervent prayer. Though, at different times after this, Job had his buffetings from his grand adversary, and some seasons of comparative darkness, yet his faith is unshaken, and he stands as a beaten anvil to the stroke. He effectually exculpates himself, and vindicates the dispensations of his Maker.
There appears to be something in the Job 21:29 verse which requires to be farther examined: Have ye not asked them that go by the way? And do ye not know their tokens? It is probable that this verse may allude to the custom of burying the dead by the way-side, and raising up specious and descriptive monuments over them. Job argues that the lot of outward prosperity fell alike to the just and to the unjust, and that the sepulchral monuments by the wayside were proofs of his assertion; for his friends, as well as himself and others, had noted them, and asked the history of such and such persons, from the nearest inhabitants of the place; and the answers, in a great variety of cases, had been: "That monument points out the place where a wicked man lies, who was all his lifetime in prosperity and affluence, yet oppressed the poor, and shut up the bowels of his compassion against the destitute; and this belongs to a man who lived only to serve his God, and to do good to man according to his power, yet had not a day of health, nor an hour of prosperity; God having given to the former his portion in this life, and reserved the recompense of the latter to a future state."
The Septuagint render the verse thus: - Ερωτησατε παραπορευμενους ὁδον, και τα σημεια αυτων ουκ απαλλοτριωσατε, "Inquire of those who pass by the way, and their signs [monuments] ye will not alienate." That is, When ye hear the history of these persons, ye will not then assert that the man who lived in prosperity was a genuine worshipper of the true God, and therefore was blessed with temporal good, and that he who lived in adversity was an enemy to God and was consequently cursed with the want of secular blessings. Of the former ye will hear a different account from those who dare now speak the truth, because the prosperous oppressor is no more; And of the latter ye shall learn that, though afflicted, destitute, and distressed, he was one of those who acknowledged God in all his ways, and never performed an act of religious service to him in hope of secular gain; sought his approbation only, and met death cheerfully, in the hope of being eternally with the Lord.
Neither good nor evil can be known by the occurrences of this life. Every thing argues the certainty of a future state, and the necessity of a day of judgment. They who are in the habit of marking casualties, especially if those whom they love not are the subjects of them, as tokens of Divine displeasure, only show an ignorance of God's dispensations, and a malevolence of mind that would fain arm itself with the celestial thunders, in order to transfix those whom they deem their enemies.
