What other scriptures discuss the fate of the wicked like Job 21:18? Verse in Focus Job 21:18 “Are they like straw before the wind, like chaff swept away by a storm?” In the Psalms—Chaff, Smoke, and Sudden Ruin • Psalm 1:4 — “Not so the wicked! For they are like chaff driven off by the wind.” • Psalm 35:5 — “May they be like chaff in the wind as the angel of the LORD drives them away.” • Psalm 37:10 — “Yet a little while, and the wicked will be no more; though you look for them, they will not be found.” • Psalm 73:18-20 — “Surely You set them on slick ground; You cast them down into ruin. How suddenly they are laid waste, completely swept away by terrors! Like one waking from a dream, O Lord, when You arise, You will despise their form.” • Psalm 92:7 — “Though the wicked sprout like grass and all evildoers flourish, they will be forever destroyed.” Wisdom Literature—Short-Lived Triumph • Proverbs 10:25 — “When the whirlwind passes, the wicked are no more, but the righteous are secure forever.” • Job 20:5 — “…the triumph of the wicked has been brief and the joy of the godless momentary?” • Job 27:20-22 — “Terrors overtake him like a flood; a tempest sweeps him away in the night. The east wind carries him away, and he is gone; it sweeps him out of his place. It hurls itself against him without mercy, as he flees headlong from its power.” Prophetic Warnings—Wind, Fire, and Total Loss • Isaiah 17:13 — “…chased like chaff on the mountains before the wind, like rolling dust before a gale.” • Hosea 13:3 — “…like chaff blown from a threshing floor, like smoke escaping through a window.” • Malachi 4:1 — “For behold, the day is coming, burning like a furnace, when all the arrogant and every evildoer will be chaff; and the day that is coming will set them ablaze…‘Not a root or branch will be left to them.’” New Testament Confirmation—The Winnowing Fork • Matthew 3:12 — “His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will clear His threshing floor and gather His wheat into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” • Luke 3:17 — “…He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” Key Observations • Consistent imagery—wind, chaff, tempest, fire—underscores the swift, unstoppable removal of the wicked. • The wicked may flourish briefly, yet Scripture repeatedly affirms their end is sudden and final. • The righteous, by contrast, are pictured as secure, planted, gathered, or preserved, highlighting the sharp divide God draws between faithfulness and rebellion. |
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