You have decided the length of our lives. You know how many months we will live, and we are not given a minute longer.
Parallel translations
- WEB Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months is with you, and you have appointed his bounds that he can’t pass;
- KJV Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months are with thee, thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass;
- BSB Since his days are determined and the number of his months is with You, and since You have set limits that he cannot exceed,
- NKJV Since his days are determined, The number of his months is with You; You have appointed his limits, so that he cannot pass.
- NASB “Since his days are determined, The number of his months is with You; And You have set his limits so that he cannot pass.
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 affirms that God has fixed the length of every human life. Our days and limits are appointed by Him.
Overview
Job acknowledges that man's days are determined, his months numbered, and his bounds appointed by God so that he cannot pass them. Life's span lies wholly in God's hands. This sovereignty over our days is both humbling and comforting, assuring believers that nothing in their lifespan falls outside God's wise appointment.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 18
- Ps 39:4“Yahweh, show me my end, what is the measure of my days. Let me know how frail I am.
- Acts 17:26He made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the surface of the earth, having determined appointed seasons, and the boundaries of their dwellings,
- Job 12:10in whose hand is the life of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind?
- Heb 9:27Inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once, and after this, judgment,
- Ps 104:29You hide your face: they are troubled; you take away their breath: they die, and return to the dust.
- Dan 5:26This is the interpretation of the thing: MENE; God has counted your kingdom, and brought it to an end;
- Job 21:21For what does he care for his house after him, when the number of his months is cut off?
- Luke 12:20“But God said to him, ‘You foolish one, tonight your soul is required of you. The things which you have prepared — whose will they be?’
- Job 23:13–14But he stands alone, and who can oppose him? What his soul desires, even that he does.
- Dan 4:35All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing; and he does according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth; and no one can stop his hand, or ask him, What are you doing?
- Ps 104:9You have set a boundary that they may not pass over; that they don’t turn again to cover the earth.
- Job 7:1“Isn’t a man forced to labor on earth? Aren’t his days like the days of a hired hand?
- Rev 3:7“To the angel of the assembly in Philadelphia write: “He who is holy, he who is true, he who has the key of David, he who opens and no one can shut, and who shuts and no one opens, says these things:
- Job 14:14If a man dies, shall he live again? All the days of my warfare would I wait, until my release should come.
- Dan 5:30In that night Belshazzar the Chaldean King was slain.
- Rev 1:18and the Living one. I was dead, and behold, I am alive forever more. Amen. I have the keys of Death and of Hades.
- Dan 11:36The king shall do according to his will; and he shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvelous things against the God of gods; and he shall prosper until the indignation be accomplished; for that which is determined shall be done.
- Dan 9:24Seventy weeks are decreed on your people and on your holy city, to finish disobedience, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy.
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 14:5 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.