Job 20:17
New International Version
He will not enjoy the streams, the rivers flowing with honey and cream.

New Living Translation
They will never again enjoy streams of olive oil or rivers of milk and honey.

English Standard Version
He will not look upon the rivers, the streams flowing with honey and curds.

Berean Standard Bible
He will not enjoy the streams, the rivers flowing with honey and cream.

King James Bible
He shall not see the rivers, the floods, the brooks of honey and butter.

New King James Version
He will not see the streams, The rivers flowing with honey and cream.

New American Standard Bible
“He does not look at the streams, The rivers flowing with honey and curds.

NASB 1995
“He does not look at the streams, The rivers flowing with honey and curds.

NASB 1977
“He does not look at the streams, The rivers flowing with honey and curds.

Legacy Standard Bible
He does not look at the streams, The rivers flowing with honey and curds.

Amplified Bible
“He does not look at the rivers, The flowing streams of honey and butter [to enjoy his wealth].

Christian Standard Bible
He will not enjoy the streams, the rivers flowing with honey and curds.

Holman Christian Standard Bible
He will not enjoy the streams, the rivers flowing with honey and cream.

American Standard Version
He shall not look upon the rivers, The flowing streams of honey and butter.

Aramaic Bible in Plain English
He will not see the tributaries of rivers, and of torrents of honey and of butter

Brenton Septuagint Translation
Let him not see the milk of the pastures, nor the supplies of honey and butter.

Contemporary English Version
and never enjoy rivers flowing with milk and honey.

Douay-Rheims Bible
(Let him not see the streams of the river, the brooks of honey and of butter.)

English Revised Version
He shall not look upon the rivers, the flowing streams of honey and butter.

GOD'S WORD® Translation
He won't be able to drink from the streams or from the rivers of honey and buttermilk.

Good News Translation
They will not live to see rivers of olive oil or streams that flow with milk and honey.

International Standard Version
He won't look at the rivers— the torrents of honey and curd.

JPS Tanakh 1917
He shall not look upon the rivers, The flowing streams of honey and curd.

Literal Standard Version
He does not look on streams, | Flowing of brooks of honey and butter.

Majority Standard Bible
He will not enjoy the streams, the rivers flowing with honey and cream.

New American Bible
He shall see no streams of oil, no torrents of honey or milk.

NET Bible
He will not look on the streams, the rivers, which are the torrents of honey and butter.

New Revised Standard Version
They will not look on the rivers, the streams flowing with honey and curds.

New Heart English Bible
He shall not look at the rivers, the flowing streams of honey and butter.

Webster's Bible Translation
He shall not see the river, the floods, the brooks of honey and buttermilk.

World English Bible
He will not look at the rivers, the flowing streams of honey and butter.

Young's Literal Translation
He looketh not on rivulets, Flowing of brooks of honey and butter.

Additional Translations ...
Audio Bible



Context
Zophar: Destruction Awaits the Wicked
16He will suck the poison of cobras; the fangs of a viper will kill him. 17He will not enjoy the streams, the rivers flowing with honey and cream. 18He must return the fruit of his labor without consuming it; he cannot enjoy the profits of his trading.…

Cross References
Genesis 18:8
Then Abraham brought curds and milk and the calf that had been prepared, and he set them before the men and stood by them under the tree as they ate.

Deuteronomy 32:13
He made him ride on the heights of the land and fed him the produce of the field. He nourished him with honey from the rock and oil from the flinty crag,

Deuteronomy 32:14
with curds from the herd and milk from the flock, with the fat of lambs, with rams from Bashan, and goats, with the choicest grains of wheat. From the juice of the finest grapes you drank the wine.

Job 29:6
when my steps were bathed in cream and the rock poured out for me streams of oil!

Psalm 36:8
They feast on the abundance of Your house, and You give them drink from Your river of delights.


Treasury of Scripture

He shall not see the rivers, the floods, the brooks of honey and butter.

shall not see

Numbers 14:23
Surely they shall not see the land which I sware unto their fathers, neither shall any of them that provoked me see it:

2 Kings 7:2
Then a lord on whose hand the king leaned answered the man of God, and said, Behold, if the LORD would make windows in heaven, might this thing be? And he said, Behold, thou shalt see it with thine eyes, but shalt not eat thereof.

Jeremiah 17:6-8
For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited…

the rivers

Psalm 36:8,9
They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house; and thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures…

Isaiah 41:17
When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue faileth for thirst, I the LORD will hear them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them.

Jeremiah 17:6
For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited.

floods.

Deuteronomy 32:13,14
He made him ride on the high places of the earth, that he might eat the increase of the fields; and he made him to suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock; …

2 Samuel 17:29
And honey, and butter, and sheep, and cheese of kine, for David, and for the people that were with him, to eat: for they said, The people is hungry, and weary, and thirsty, in the wilderness.

Psalm 81:16
He should have fed them also with the finest of the wheat: and with honey out of the rock should I have satisfied thee.

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Brooks Butter Cream Curd Curds Enjoy Floods Flowing Honey Milk Oil River Rivers Rivulets Streams
Job 20
1. Zophar shows the state and portion of the wicked














(17) The brooks of honey and butter.--He uses language which might lead one to suppose he was familiar with the promise of Canaan, except that, as the phrase is not precisely identical it may perhaps rather show a community of proverbial language, and that the land flowing with milk and honey may have been an expression in use, and not one original with the Pentateuch.

Verse 17. - He shall not see the rivers, the floods, the brooks. The wicked man shall suffer, not only positive pains, but what casuists call the peens damni, or "penalty of loss" - deprivation, in other words, of blessings which he would naturally have enjoyed but for his wickedness. Zophar here threatens him with the Joss of those paradisiacal delights which the Orientals associated with water in all its forms, whether as פּלגות, or "rills derived from larger streams," or as כהרי, "rivers," or as כחלי, "brooks" or "torrents," now strong and impetuous, now reduced to a mere thread These are said poetically to flow with honey and butter, not, of course, in any literal sense, such as Ovid may have meant, when, in describing the golden age, he said -

"Flumina jam lactis, jam fiumina nectaris ibant;"

(Metaph.,' 1:111.) but as fertilizing the land through which they ran, and so causing it to abound with bees and cattle, whence would be derived butter and honey. Compare the terms in which Canaan was described to the Israelites (Exodus 3:8, 17; Exodus 13:5; Deuteronomy 26:9, 15, etc.).

Parallel Commentaries ...


Hebrew
He will not
אַל־ (’al-)
Adverb
Strong's 408: Not

enjoy
יֵ֥רֶא (yê·re)
Verb - Qal - Imperfect Jussive - third person masculine singular
Strong's 7200: To see

the streams,
בִפְלַגּ֑וֹת (ḇip̄·lag·gō·wṯ)
Preposition-b | Noun - feminine plural
Strong's 6390: A stream, division

the rivers
נַהֲרֵ֥י (na·hă·rê)
Noun - masculine plural construct
Strong's 5104: A stream, prosperity

flowing with
נַ֝חֲלֵ֗י (na·ḥă·lê)
Noun - masculine plural construct
Strong's 5158: A stream, a winter torrent, a, valley, a shaft

honey
דְּבַ֣שׁ (də·ḇaš)
Noun - masculine singular
Strong's 1706: Honey, syrup

and cream.
וְחֶמְאָֽה׃ (wə·ḥem·’āh)
Conjunctive waw | Noun - feminine singular
Strong's 2529: Curdled milk, cheese


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OT Poetry: Job 20:17 He shall not look at the rivers (Jb)
Job 20:16
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