For now should I have lain still and been quiet, I should have slept: then had I been at rest,
Parallel translations
- WEB For now should I have lain down and been quiet. I should have slept, then I would have been at rest,
- BSB For now I would be lying down in peace; I would be asleep and at rest
- NKJV For now I would have lain still and been quiet, I would have been asleep; Then I would have been at rest
- NASB “For now I would have lain down and been quiet; I would have slept then, I would have been at rest,
- NLT Had I died at birth, I would now be at peace. I would be asleep and at rest.
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 imagines the rest he would have had in death. He pictures the grave as quiet and peaceful.
Overview
Job envisions death as lying down in stillness and sleep, free from his present torment. For him the grave represents relief from suffering rather than terror. This longing for rest is met more fully in the gospel hope, where Christ transforms death and offers true and everlasting rest.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 10
- Job 14:10–12But man dieth, and wasteth away: yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he?
- Eccl 9:10Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.
- Job 21:13They spend their days in wealth, and in a moment go down to the grave.
- Eccl 6:3–5If a man beget an hundred children, and live many years, so that the days of his years be many, and his soul be not filled with good, and also that he have no burial; I say, that an untimely birth is better than he.
- Job 17:13If I wait, the grave is mine house: I have made my bed in the darkness.
- Job 21:23One dieth in his full strength, being wholly at ease and quiet.
- Job 10:22A land of darkness, as darkness itself; and of the shadow of death, without any order, and where the light is as darkness.
- Job 7:8–10The eye of him that hath seen me shall see me no more: thine eyes are upon me, and I am not.
- Job 7:21And why dost thou not pardon my transgression, and take away mine iniquity? for now shall I sleep in the dust; and thou shalt seek me in the morning, but I shall not be.
- Job 19:27Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me.
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 3:13 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.