The Meaning of Job 6:17 Explained

Job 6:17

KJV: What time they wax warm, they vanish: when it is hot, they are consumed out of their place.

YLT: By the time they are warm they have been cut off, By its being hot they have been Extinguished from their place.

Darby: At the time they diminish, they are dried up; when heat affecteth them, they vanish from their place:

ASV: What time they wax warm, they vanish; When it is hot, they are consumed out of their place.

KJV Reverse Interlinear

What time  they wax warm,  they vanish:  when it is hot,  they are consumed out  of their place. 

What does Job 6:17 Mean?

Context Summary

Job 6:1-30 - "a Deceitful Brook"
The burden of Job's complaint is the ill-treatment meted out by his friends. They had accused him of speaking rashly, but they had not measured the greatness of his pain, Job 6:4, or they would have seen it to be as natural as the braying and lowing of hungry and suffering beasts, Job 6:5. A man would not take insipid food without complaint; how much more reason had he to complain whose tears were his meat day and night, Job 6:6-7! So bitter were his pains that he would welcome death, and exult in the throes of dissolution, Job 6:8-10. It could hardly be otherwise than that he should succumb, since he had only the ordinary strength of mortals, and both strength and wisdom were exhausted, Job 6:11-13.
Job next characterizes the assistance of his friends as winter brooks, turbid with melted ice and snow, which bitterly disappoint the travelers who had hoped to find water, and perish beside the dry heaps of stones, Job 6:17. They had found fault with his words, which, in the circumstances, were not a true index to his heart, Job 6:26; but a look into his face would have sufficed to attest his innocence of the sin of which they accused him, Job 6:28-30.
From these complaints of faithlessness and disappointment we turn to Him who, having been made perfect through suffering, has become "the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey Him," Hebrews 5:9. [source]

Chapter Summary: Job 6

1  Job shows that his complaints are not causeless
8  He wishes for death, wherein he is assured of comfort
14  He reproves his friends of unkindness

What do the individual words in Job 6:17 mean?

When it is warm they cease to flow when it is hot they vanish from their place
בְּ֭עֵת יְזֹרְב֣וּ נִצְמָ֑תוּ בְּ֝חֻמּ֗וֹ נִדְעֲכ֥וּ מִמְּקוֹמָֽם

יְזֹרְב֣וּ  it  is  warm 
Parse: Verb, Pual, Imperfect, third person masculine plural
Root: זָרַב  
Sense: (Pual) to dry up, be warmed, be burned, be scorched.
נִצְמָ֑תוּ  they  cease  to  flow 
Parse: Verb, Nifal, Perfect, third person common plural
Root: צָמַת  
Sense: to put an end to, cut off, destroy, exterminate, extirpate.
בְּ֝חֻמּ֗וֹ  when  it  is  hot 
Parse: Preposition-b, Verb, Qal, Infinitive construct, third person masculine singular
Root: חֹם  
Sense: heat, hot.
נִדְעֲכ֥וּ  they  vanish 
Parse: Verb, Nifal, Perfect, third person common plural
Root: דָּעַךְ  
Sense: to go out, be extinguished, dry up.
מִמְּקוֹמָֽם  from  their  place 
Parse: Preposition-m, Noun, masculine singular construct, third person masculine plural
Root: מָקֹום  
Sense: standing place, place.

What are the major concepts related to Job 6:17?

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