If I wait, the grave is mine house: I have made my bed in the darkness.
Parallel translations
- WEB If I look for Sheol as my house, if I have spread my couch in the darkness,
- BSB If I look for Sheol as my home, if I spread out my bed in darkness,
- NKJV If I wait for the grave as my house, If I make my bed in the darkness,
- NASB “If I hope for Sheol as my home, I make my bed in the darkness;
- NLT What if I go to the grave and make my bed in darkness?
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 contemplates Sheol, the grave, as his only home, with darkness for his bed. Death seems to be all that awaits him.
Overview
Job considers that the realm of the dead is the dwelling he can expect, his couch spread in the gloom. The somber reflection underscores how thoroughly his hope in this life has faded. Yet even this descent into the shadow of death is not beyond God's reach, for Christ has entered death itself and emerged victorious, opening hope beyond the grave.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 9
- Job 10:21–22Before I go whence I shall not return, even to the land of darkness and the shadow of death;
- Job 3:13For now should I have lain still and been quiet, I should have slept: then had I been at rest,
- Job 17:1My breath is corrupt, my days are extinct, the graves are ready for me.
- Lam 3:25–26The LORD is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.
- Job 30:23For I know that thou wilt bring me to death, and to the house appointed for all living.
- Job 14:14If a man die, shall he live again? all the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come.
- Ps 139:8If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.
- Ps 27:14Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD.
- Isa 57:2He shall enter into peace: they shall rest in their beds, each one walking in his uprightness.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.
Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.
Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
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 17:13 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.