Lectionary Calendar
Tuesday, December 23rd, 2025
the Fourth Week of Advent
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Read the Bible

New Revised Standard

Job 39:6

to which I have given the steppe for its home, the salt land for its dwelling place?

Bible Study Resources

Concordances:

- Nave's Topical Bible - God;   Torrey's Topical Textbook - Ass, the Wild;   Beasts;  

Dictionaries:

- Bridgeway Bible Dictionary - Animals;   Easton Bible Dictionary - Ass;   Fausset Bible Dictionary - Arabia;   Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible - Arabia, Arabs;   Knowledge;   Nature;   World;   Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary - Ass;   Salt;  

Encyclopedias:

- International Standard Bible Encyclopedia - Barren;   Champaign;  

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
I made the desert its home,and the salty wasteland its dwelling.
Hebrew Names Version
Whose home I have made the wilderness, And the salt land his dwelling-place?
King James Version
Whose house I have made the wilderness, and the barren land his dwellings.
English Standard Version
to whom I have given the arid plain for his home and the salt land for his dwelling place?
New Century Version
I am the one who gave the donkey the desert as its home; I gave it the desert lands as a place to live.
New English Translation
to whom I appointed the steppe for its home, the salt wastes as its dwelling place?
Amplified Bible
To whom I gave the wilderness as his home And the salt land as his dwelling place?
New American Standard Bible
To whom I gave the wilderness as his home, And the salt land as his dwelling place?
World English Bible
Whose home I have made the wilderness, And the salt land his dwelling-place?
Geneva Bible (1587)
It is I which haue made the wildernesse his house, and the salt places his dwellings.
Legacy Standard Bible
For whom I have set the desert plain as a homeAnd the salt land as his dwelling place?
Berean Standard Bible
I made the wilderness his home and the salt flats his dwelling.
Contemporary English Version
I alone help them survive in salty desert sand.
Complete Jewish Bible
I made the ‘Aravah its home, the salty desert its place to live.
Darby Translation
Whose house I made the wilderness, and the salt plain his dwellings?
Easy-to-Read Version
I let the wild donkey have the desert for a home. I gave the salt lands to them for a place to live.
George Lamsa Translation
For he has made the plain his house, and the salt land his dwelling place.
Good News Translation
I gave them the desert to be their home, and let them live on the salt plains.
Lexham English Bible
to which I have given the wilderness as its house and the salt flat as its dwelling place?
Literal Translation
To whom I have assigned the desert for his home, and the salt land for his dwellings?
Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
Vnto who I haue geuen the wyldernes to be their house, & the vntilled londe to be their dwellinge place.
American Standard Version
Whose home I have made the wilderness, And the salt land his dwelling-place?
Bible in Basic English
To whom I have given the waste land for a heritage, and the salt land as a living-place.
JPS Old Testament (1917)
Whose house I have made the wilderness, and the salt land his dwelling-place.
King James Version (1611)
Whose house I haue made the wildernesse, and the barren lande his dwellings.
Bishop's Bible (1568)
Euen I which haue geuen the wyldernesse to be their house, and the vntilled land to be their dwelling.
Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
whereas I made his habitation the wilderness, and the salt land his coverts.
English Revised Version
Whose house I have made the wilderness, and the salt land his dwelling place.
Wycliffe Bible (1395)
To whom Y haue youe an hows in wildirnesse, and the tabernacles of hym in the lond of saltnesse.
Update Bible Version
Whose home I have made the wilderness, And the salt land his dwelling-place?
Webster's Bible Translation
Whose house I have made the wilderness, and the barren land his dwellings.
New King James Version
Whose home I have made the wilderness, And the barren land his dwelling?
New Living Translation
I have placed it in the wilderness; its home is the wasteland.
New Life Bible
I gave him the desert for a home, and the salt land for a place to live.
J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
Whose house I have made the waste plain, and his dwellings, the land of salt:
Douay-Rheims Bible
To whom I have given a house in the wilderness, and his dwellings in the barren land.
Revised Standard Version
to whom I have given the steppe for his home, and the salt land for his dwelling place?
Young's Literal Translation
Whose house I have made the wilderness, And his dwellings the barren land,
New American Standard Bible (1995)
To whom I gave the wilderness for a home And the salt land for his dwelling place?

Contextual Overview

1 "Do you know when the mountain goats give birth? Do you observe the calving of the deer? 2 Can you number the months that they fulfill, and do you know the time when they give birth, 3 when they crouch to give birth to their offspring, and are delivered of their young? 4 Their young ones become strong, they grow up in the open; they go forth, and do not return to them. 5 "Who has let the wild ass go free? Who has loosed the bonds of the swift ass, 6 to which I have given the steppe for its home, the salt land for its dwelling place? 7 It scorns the tumult of the city; it does not hear the shouts of the driver. 8 It ranges the mountains as its pasture, and it searches after every green thing. 9 "Is the wild ox willing to serve you? Will it spend the night at your crib? 10 Can you tie it in the furrow with ropes, or will it harrow the valleys after you?

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

barren land: Heb. salt places, Deuteronomy 29:23, Psalms 107:34, Jeremiah 17:6, Ezekiel 47:11

Reciprocal: Jeremiah 14:6 - the wild

Cross-References

Genesis 29:17
Leah's eyes were lovely, and Rachel was graceful and beautiful.
Genesis 39:4
So Joseph found favor in his sight and attended him; he made him overseer of his house and put him in charge of all that he had.
Genesis 39:8
But he refused and said to his master's wife, "Look, with me here, my master has no concern about anything in the house, and he has put everything that he has in my hand.
Genesis 39:14
she called out to the members of her household and said to them, "See, my husband has brought among us a Hebrew to insult us! He came in to me to lie with me, and I cried out with a loud voice;
Genesis 39:15
and when he heard me raise my voice and cry out, he left his garment beside me, and fled outside."
Genesis 39:23
The chief jailer paid no heed to anything that was in Joseph's care, because the Lord was with him; and whatever he did, the Lord made it prosper.
Genesis 43:32
They served him by himself, and them by themselves, and the Egyptians who ate with him by themselves, because the Egyptians could not eat with the Hebrews, for that is an abomination to the Egyptians.
1 Samuel 16:12
He sent and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, and had beautiful eyes, and was handsome. The Lord said, "Rise and anoint him; for this is the one."
1 Samuel 17:42
When the Philistine looked and saw David, he disdained him, for he was only a youth, ruddy and handsome in appearance.
Proverbs 31:11
The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Whose house I have made the wilderness,.... Appointed that to be his place of residence, as being agreeable to his nature, at a distance from men, and in the less danger of being brought into subjection by them. Such were the deserts of Arabia; where, as Xenophon n relates, were many of these creatures, and which he represents as very swift: and Leo Africanus o says, great numbers of them are found in deserts, and on the borders of deserts; hence said to be used to the wilderness Jeremiah 2:24;

and the barren land his dwellings; not entirely barren, for then it could not live there; but comparatively, with respect to land that is fruitful: or "salt land" p; for, as Pliny q says, every place where salt is, is barren.

n De Expedition. Cyri, l. 1. o Descriptio Africae, l. 9. p. 752. p מלחה "salsuginem", Montanus; "salsuginosam terram", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator. q Nat. Hist. l. 31. c. 7.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Whose house I have made - God had appointed its home in the desert.

And the barren land his dwellings - Margin, as in Hebrew “salt places.” Such places were usually barren. Psalms 107:34, “he turneth a fruitful land into barrenness.” Hebrew “saltness.” Thus, Virgil, Geor. ii. 238-240:

Salsa antem tellus, et quae, perhibetur amara.

Frugibus infelix: ea nec mansuescit arando;

Nec Baccho genus, aut pomis sua nomina servat.

Compare Pliny, Nat. His. 31, 7, Deuteronomy 29:23.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Job 39:6. Whose house — Habitation, or place of resort.

The barren land — מלחה melechah, the salt land, or salt places, as in the margin. See above.


 
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