Your maxims are proverbs of ashes; your defenses are defenses of clay.
Parallel translations
- WEB Your memorable sayings are proverbs of ashes, Your defenses are defenses of clay.
- KJV Your remembrances are like unto ashes, your bodies to bodies of clay.
- NKJV Your platitudes are proverbs of ashes, Your defenses are defenses of clay.
- NASB “Your memorable sayings are proverbs of ashes, Your defenses are defenses of clay.
- NLT Your platitudes are as valuable as ashes. Your defense is as fragile as a clay pot.
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 dismisses his friends' sayings as worthless ashes and crumbling clay. Their proverbs offer no real defense.
Overview
Job calls their 'memorable sayings' mere 'proverbs of ashes' and their defenses 'defenses of clay.' Their traditional maxims, however polished, cannot withstand reality and crumble under the weight of his suffering. Borrowed wisdom misapplied provides no shelter to the afflicted or footing for the wise.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 11
- Gen 18:27Then Abraham answered, “Now that I have ventured to speak to the Lord—though I am but dust and ashes—
- Job 18:17The memory of him perishes from the earth, and he has no name in the land.
- Ps 34:16But the face of the LORD is against those who do evil, to wipe out all memory of them from the earth.
- Exod 17:14Then the LORD said to Moses, “Write this on a scroll as a reminder and recite it to Joshua, because I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven.”
- Prov 10:7The memory of the righteous is a blessing, but the name of the wicked will rot.
- Isa 26:14The dead will not live; the departed spirits will not rise. Therefore You have punished and destroyed them; You have wiped out all memory of them.
- Gen 2:7Then the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and the man became a living being.
- Ps 102:12But You, O LORD, sit enthroned forever; Your renown endures to all generations.
- 2 Cor 5:1Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is dismantled, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.
- Job 4:19how much more those who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundations are in the dust, who can be crushed like a moth!
- Ps 109:15May their sins always remain before the LORD, that He may cut off their memory from the earth.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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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 13:12 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.