Parallel Verses New American Standard Bible "They send forth their little ones like the flock, And their children skip about. King James Bible They send forth their little ones like a flock, and their children dance. Darby Bible Translation They send forth their little ones like a flock, and their children dance. World English Bible They send forth their little ones like a flock. Their children dance. Young's Literal Translation They send forth as a flock their sucklings, And their children skip, Job 21:11 Parallel Commentary Barnes' Notes on the BibleThey send forth their little ones - Their numerous and happy children they send forth to plays and pastimes. Like a flock - In great numbers. This is an exquisitely beautiful image of prosperity. What can be more so than a group of happy children around a man's dwelling? And their children dance - Dance for joy. They are playful and sportive, like the lambs of the flock. It is the skip of playfulness and exultation that is referred to here, and not the set and formal dance where children are instructed in the art; the sportiveness of children in the fields, the woods, and on the lawn, and not the set step taught in the dancing-school. The word used here (רקד râqad), means "to leap, to skip" - as from joy, and then to dance. Jerome has well rendered it, "exultant lusibus" - "they leap about in their plays." So the Septuagint, προσπαίζουσιν prospaizousin - "they frolic" or "play." There is no evidence here that Job meant to say that they taught their children to dance; that they caused them to be trained in anything that now corresponds to dancing-schools; and that he meant to say that such a training was improper and tended to exclude God from the heart. The image is one simply of health, abundance, exuberance of feeling, cheerfulness, prosperity. The houses were free from alarms; the fields were filled with herds and flocks, and their families of happy and playful children were around them. The object of Job was not to say that all this was in itself wrong, but that it was a plain matter of fact that God did not take away the comforts of all the wicked and overwhelm them with calamity. Of the impropriety of training children in a dancing-school, there ought to be but one opinion among the friends of religion (see National Preacher for January 1844), but there is no evidence that Job referred to any such training here, "and" this passage should not be adduced to prove that dancing is wrong. It refers to the playfulness and the cheerful sports of children, and God has made them so that they "will" find pleasure in such sports, and so that they are benefited by them. There is not a more lovely picture of happiness and of the benevolence of God any where on earth than in such groups of children, and in their sportiveness and playfulness there is no more that is wrong than there is in the gambols of the lambs of the flock. Job 21:11-15.In their feasts - 'The Nabathaeans of Arabia Petrea always introduced music at their entertainments (Strabo, xvi.), and the custom seems to have been very general among the ancients. They are mentioned as having been essential among the Greeks, from the earliest times; and are pronounced by Homer to be requisite at a feast: Μολπή τ ̓ ὀρχηστύ; τε τά γάρ τ ̓ ἀναθήματα δαιτός. Molpē t' orchēstu; te ta gar t' anathēmata daitos. continued... Job 21:11 Parallel Commentaries Library Dancing. DANCING is the expression of inward feelings by means of rhythmical movements of the body. Usually these movements are in measured step, and are accompanied by music. In some form or another dancing is as old as the world, and has been practiced by rude as well as by civilized peoples. The passion for amateur dancing always has been strongest among savage nations, who have made equal use of it in religious rites and in war. With the savages the dancers work themselves into a perfect frenzy, into … J. M. Judy—Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes Whether a Man Can Hate the Truth? The Careless Sinner Awakened. The Resemblance Between the Old Testament and the New. Cross References Job 21:10 "His ox mates without fail; His cow calves and does not abort. Job 21:12 "They sing to the timbrel and harp And rejoice at the sound of the flute. Psalm 107:41 But He sets the needy securely on high away from affliction, And makes his families like a flock. Jump to Previous Children Dance Flock Forth Little Ones Pleasure Skip Sucklings YoungJump to Next Children Dance Flock Forth Little Ones Pleasure Skip Sucklings YoungLinks Job 21:11 NIVJob 21:11 NLT Job 21:11 ESV Job 21:11 NASB Job 21:11 KJV Job 21:11 Bible Apps Job 21:11 Biblia Paralela Job 21:11 Chinese Bible Job 21:11 French Bible Job 21:11 German Bible Job 21:11 Commentaries Bible Hub |