Job 6:17
in Job 6but ceasing in the dry season and vanishing from their channels in the heat.
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
What time they wax warm, they vanish; When it is hot, they are consumed out of their place.
KJV
What time they wax warm, they vanish: when it is hot, they are consumed out of their place.
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This verse in Job 6
Commentary
10 notes on this verseA commentator
Albert Barnes1798–1870
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
What time - In the time; or after a time. They wax warm - Gesenius renders this word (יזרבו yezorebû) when they became narrow, and this version has been adopted by Noyes. The word occurs nowhere else.
This site's exposition
But my brothers are as faithless as wadis
on Job 6:15-17
Job turns the friendship into a figure: "my brothers are as faithless as wadis". The streams run dark with ice and melting snow when no one needs water, failing when the dry season makes them necessary. These are wadis of the Arabian desert, torrents in winter and dust in summer.
This site's exposition
but ceasing in the dry season
One verb in this line occurs nowhere else, as Barnes notes, and Gesenius took it to mean shrinking. The wadis that overflow with melting snow are vanishing from their channels by the dry season. The brothers of verse 15 are those streams.
The record, by era
The Church Fathers1 voice
JOB MEANS TO SAY THIS: there is no memory or trace left of my former prosperity. And that is even worse than my misfortune itself. "Oh, that one would indeed weigh the wrath that is upon me and take up my sorrow in a balance together!" And Job now tries to describe his sorrows. "I perceive my food to be loathsome [as the smell of a lion]." I wish to die, but I do not die. I suffer so because I am a man and not a stone; I am an ephemeral human being, I do not enjoy the aid from above. Among my nearest relations, some pass me by without seeing me; others trample me underfoot. No trace of my former prosperity remains.
The Medieval Church2 voices
What time they be dissipated they shall perish. For all persons that are ruled by concern for the present life, are brought to nought by the loss of it, and then they are undone without, who have for long been undone within by disregarding the things of eternity. Concerning whom it is rightly added, When they have become hot, they shall be dissolved from their place.
"And they will vanish from their place as though dried up." He uses the metaphor of snow, which he has already mentioned, for it does not immediately melt with the first heat when it is very hard and frozen, but when not yet frozen, it …
The Puritans and the Awakening2 voices
4 For the arrows of the Almighty are within me, the poison whereof drinketh up my spirit: the terrors of God do set themselves in array against me. 5 Doth the wild ass bray when he hath grass? or loweth the ox over his fodder? 6 Can that which is unsavoury be eaten without salt? or is there any taste in the white of an egg?
quarantine:scripture (2026-07-29) — verbatim-scripture
What time they wax warm they vanish,....
2 more voices on this verse
The Puritans and the Awakening1 voice
(1.) Their pretensions are fitly compared to the great show which the brooks make when they are swollen with the waters of a land flood, by the melting of the ice and snow, which make them blackish or muddy,
The Nineteenth Century1 voice
A commentator
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown1802–1910
Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)
proposed
wax warm--rather, "At the time when." ("But they soon wax") [UMBREIT]. "they become narrower (flow in a narrower bed), they are silent (cease to flow noisily); in the heat (of the sun) they are consumed or vanish out of their place.
quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — starts-lowercase+odd-straight-quotes
The words behind it
6 Hebrew wordsEvery Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.
| Hebrew | Sound | Meaning | Word study | In the Bible |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| בְּ֭עֵת | beet | at [the] time | H6256 → | 296 times |
| יְזֹרְב֣וּ | yezorevu | [when] they flow | H2215 → | |
| נִצְמָ֑תוּ | nitzmatu | they are silenced | H6789 → | |
| בְּ֝חֻמּ֗וֹ | bechumo | in heat its | H2552 → | 21 times |
| נִדְעֲכ֥וּ | nidakhu | they are dried up | H1846 → | 9 times |
| מִמְּקוֹמָֽם׃ | mimekomam | from place their | H4725 → | 401 times |
בְּ֭עֵתat [the] time
beetH6256 →296 times
יְזֹרְב֣וּ[when] they flow
yezorevuH2215 →
נִצְמָ֑תוּthey are silenced
nitzmatuH6789 →
בְּ֝חֻמּ֗וֹin heat its
bechumoH2552 →21 times
נִדְעֲכ֥וּthey are dried up
nidakhuH1846 →9 times
מִמְּקוֹמָֽם׃from place their
mimekomamH4725 →401 times
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
The walk
8 stopsEach card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.
Through
1 Kings 17:1Now Elijah the Tishbite, who was among the settlers of Gilead, said to Ahab, “As surely as the LORD lives—the God of Israel before whom I stand—there will be neither dew nor rain in…
it leads to
- Luke 4:25–26
But I tell you truthfully that there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and great famine swept over all…
- James 5:17
Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years.
- Luke 1:17
And he will go on before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to…
- 1 Kings 22:14
But Micaiah said, “As surely as the LORD lives, I will speak whatever the LORD tells me.”
- 2 Kings 3:14
Then Elisha said, “As surely as the LORD of Hosts lives, before whom I stand, were it not for my regard for the presence of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, I would not look at…
- Luke 4:25–26
Through
Job 24:19As drought and heat consume the melting snow, so Sheol steals those who have sinned.
it leads to
- Psalms 49:14
Like sheep they are destined for Sheol. Death will be their shepherd. The upright will rule them in the morning, and their form will decay in Sheol, far from their lofty abode.
- Proverbs 14:32
The wicked man is thrown down by his own sin, but the righteous man has a refuge even in death.
- Luke 16:22
One day the beggar died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s side. And the rich man also died and was buried.
- Psalms 49:14
Where this verse is studied
On this page
Studies1
About Job
This page draws on 10 works. Open the list of works
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments; Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Book of Job; Gregory the Dialogist, Morals on the Book of Job, Book VII; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Chrysostom, COMMENTARY ON JOB 6:16-18B; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763); Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Job.