Remember that you made me from dust— will you turn me back to dust so soon?
Parallel translations
- WEB Remember, I beg you, that you have fashioned me as clay. Will you bring me into dust again?
- KJV Remember, I beseech thee, that thou hast made me as the clay; and wilt thou bring me into dust again?
- BSB Please remember that You molded me like clay. Would You now return me to dust?
- NKJV Remember, I pray, that You have made me like clay. And will You turn me into dust again?
- NASB ‘Remember that You have made me as clay; Yet would You turn me into dust again?
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Job asks God to remember that He made him from clay and pleads against returning him to dust. He grounds his appeal in human frailty.
Overview
Recalling that he was formed like clay, Job begs God not to crush him back into dust. The imagery echoes humanity's creation from the ground and its return to it (Genesis 2:7; 3:19). Job's mortality cry finds its answer in the resurrection hope, where the God who formed us from dust will raise our bodies through Christ (1 Corinthians 15:42-49).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 15
- Gen 2:7Yahweh God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
- Isa 64:8But now, Yahweh, you are our Father. We are the clay, and you our potter. We all are the work of your hand.
- Gen 3:19By the sweat of your face will you eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken. For you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
- Eccl 12:7and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.
- Jer 18:6“House of Israel, can’t I do with you as this potter?” says Yahweh. “Behold, as the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, house of Israel.
- Isa 45:9Woe to him who strives with his Maker — a clay pot among the clay pots of the earth! Shall the clay ask him who fashions it, ‘What are you making?’ or your work, ‘He has no hands?’
- Rom 9:21Or hasn’t the potter a right over the clay, from the same lump to make one part a vessel for honor, and another for dishonor?
- Ps 25:6–7Yahweh, remember your tender mercies and your loving kindness, for they are from old times.
- Ps 22:15My strength is dried up like a potsherd. My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. You have brought me into the dust of death.
- Ps 90:3You turn man to destruction, saying, “Return, you children of men.”
- Job 7:7Oh remember that my life is a breath. My eye shall no more see good.
- Ps 89:47Remember how short my time is! For what vanity have you created all the children of men!
- Ps 25:18Consider my affliction and my travail. Forgive all my sins.
- Ps 106:4Remember me, Yahweh, with the favor that you show to your people. Visit me with your salvation,
- Job 17:14If I have said to corruption, ‘You are my father;’ to the worm, ‘My mother,’ and ‘my sister;’
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Commentaries & study tools
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
Job's cry for a mediator who can lay his hand on both God and man, and his confidence that 'my Redeemer lives' and will stand on the earth, reaches forward to Jesus the living Redeemer.
How Job 10:9 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.