If I say to corruption, ‘You are my father,’ And to the worm, ‘You are 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;’
- KJV I have said to corruption, Thou art my father: to the worm, Thou art my mother, and my sister.
- BSB and say to corruption, ‘You are my father,’ and to the worm, ‘My mother,’ or ‘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 leave my soul in Sheol, neither will you allow your holy one to see corruption.
- Job 21:26They lie down alike in the dust. The worm covers them.
- Ps 49:9that he should live on forever, that he should not see corruption.
- Job 24:20The womb shall forget him. The worm shall feed sweetly on him. He shall be no more remembered. Unrighteousness shall be broken as a tree.
- Isa 14:11Your pomp is brought down to Sheol, with the sound of your stringed instruments. Maggots are spread out under you, and worms cover you.
- Acts 2:27–31because you will not leave my soul in Hades, neither will you allow your Holy One to see decay.
- Acts 13:34–37“Concerning that he raised him up from the dead, now no more to return to corruption, he has spoken thus: ‘I will give you the holy and sure blessings of David.’
- Job 30:30My skin grows black and peels from me. My bones are burned with heat.
- 1 Cor 15:42So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown perishable; it is raised imperishable.
- 1 Cor 15:53–54For this perishable body must become imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality.
- Job 21:32–33Yet he will be borne to the grave. Men shall keep watch over the tomb.
- Job 13:28though I am decaying like a rotten thing, like a garment that is moth-eaten.
- Job 19:26After my skin is destroyed, then in my flesh shall I see God,
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 17:14 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.