and say to corruption, ‘You are my father,’ and to the worm, ‘My mother,’ or ‘My sister,’
Parallel translations
- WEB If I have said to corruption, ‘You are my father;’ to the worm, ‘My mother,’ and ‘my sister;’
- KJV I have said to corruption, Thou art my father: to the worm, Thou art my mother, and my sister.
- NKJV If I say to corruption, ‘You are my father,’ And to the worm, ‘You are my mother and my sister,’
- NASB If I call to the grave, ‘You are my father’; To the maggot, ‘my mother and my sister’;
- NLT What if I call the grave my father, and the maggot my mother or my sister?
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 is ready to call corruption his father and the worm his mother and sister. He embraces the grave as his only family.
Overview
In stark imagery Job claims kinship with decay and the worm, the closest companions of the buried dead. The bleak picture expresses how near and intimate death now feels to him. Such honest facing of mortality drives the sufferer to long for redemption from the grave, a longing answered in the resurrection hope secured by Christ (1 Corinthians 15:54-55).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 13
- Ps 16:10For You will not abandon my soul to Sheol, nor will You let Your Holy One see decay.
- Job 21:26But together they lie down in the dust, and worms cover them both.
- Ps 49:9that he should live on forever and not see decay.
- Job 24:20The womb forgets them; the worm feeds on them; they are remembered no more. So injustice is like a broken tree.
- Isa 14:11Your pomp has been brought down to Sheol, along with the music of your harps. Maggots are your bed and worms your blanket.
- Acts 2:27–31because You will not abandon my soul to Hades, nor will You let Your Holy One see decay.
- Acts 13:34–37In fact, God raised Him from the dead, never to see decay. As He has said: ‘I will give you the holy and sure blessings promised to David.’
- Job 30:30My skin grows black and peels, and my bones burn with fever.
- 1 Cor 15:42So will it be with the resurrection of the dead: What is sown is perishable; it is raised imperishable.
- 1 Cor 15:53–54For the perishable must be clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality.
- Job 21:32–33He is carried to the grave, and watch is kept over his tomb.
- Job 13:28So man wastes away like something rotten, like a moth-eaten garment.
- Job 19:26Even after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God.
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 17:14 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.