I have said to corruption, Thou art my father: to the worm, Thou art my mother, and my sister.
Parallel translations
- WEB If I have said to corruption, ‘You are my father;’ to the worm, ‘My mother,’ and ‘my sister;’
- BSB and say to corruption, ‘You are my father,’ and to the worm, ‘My mother,’ or ‘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 thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.
- Job 21:26They shall lie down alike in the dust, and the worms shall cover them.
- Ps 49:9That he should still live for ever, and not see corruption.
- Job 24:20The womb shall forget him; the worm shall feed sweetly on him; he shall be no more remembered; and wickedness shall be broken as a tree.
- Isa 14:11Thy pomp is brought down to the grave, and the noise of thy viols: the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee.
- Acts 2:27–31Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.
- Acts 13:34–37And as concerning that he raised him up from the dead, now no more to return to corruption, he said on this wise, I will give you the sure mercies of David.
- Job 30:30My skin is black upon me, and my bones are burned with heat.
- 1 Cor 15:42So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption:
- 1 Cor 15:53–54For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.
- Job 21:32–33Yet shall he be brought to the grave, and shall remain in the tomb.
- Job 13:28And he, as a rotten thing, consumeth, as a garment that is moth eaten.
- Job 19:26And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I 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.