With kings and counselors of the earth, Who built ruins for themselves,
Parallel translations
- WEB with kings and counselors of the earth, who built up waste places for themselves;
- KJV With kings and counsellors of the earth, which built desolate places for themselves;
- BSB with kings and counselors of the earth, who built for themselves cities now in ruins,
- NASB With kings and counselors of the earth, Who rebuilt ruins for themselves;
- NLT I would rest with the world’s kings and prime ministers, whose great buildings now lie in ruins.
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
In death Job would lie with kings and counselors. The grave levels even the mighty.
Overview
Job pictures himself resting alongside the great rulers of the earth who built grand projects now reduced to ruins. Death erases distinctions of rank and achievement. The image reinforces his longing for the equality and quiet of the grave amid his suffering.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 14
- Job 15:28He has lived in desolate cities, in houses which no one inhabited, which were ready to become heaps.
- Ps 89:48What man is he who shall live and not see death, who shall deliver his soul from the power of Sheol? Selah.
- Ps 49:14They are appointed as a flock for Sheol. Death shall be their shepherd. The upright shall have dominion over them in the morning. Their beauty shall decay in Sheol, far from their mansion.
- Isa 14:10–16They all will answer and ask you, “Have you also become as weak as we are? Have you become like us?”
- Isa 5:8Woe to those who join house to house, who lay field to field, until there is no room, and you are made to dwell alone in the middle of the land!
- Ps 49:6–10Those who trust in their wealth, and boast in the multitude of their riches —
- Eccl 8:8There is no man who has power over the spirit to contain the spirit; neither does he have power over the day of death. There is no discharge in war; neither shall wickedness deliver those who practice it.
- 1 Kgs 11:43Solomon slept with his fathers, and was buried in his father David’s city; and Rehoboam his son reigned in his place.
- Ezek 27:18–32Damascus was your merchant for the multitude of your handiworks, by reason of the multitude of all kinds of riches, with the wine of Helbon, and white wool.
- Ezek 26:20then I will bring you down with those who descend into the pit, to the people of old time, and will make you to dwell in the lower parts of the earth, in the places that are desolate of old, with those who go down to the pit, that you be not inhabited; and I will set glory in the land of the living:
- Job 12:17He leads counselors away stripped. He makes judges fools.
- Job 30:23For I know that you will bring me to death, To the house appointed for all living.
- Isa 58:12Those who shall be of you shall build the old waste places; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; and you shall be called Repairer of the Breach, Restorer of Paths with Dwellings.
- 1 Kgs 2:10David slept with his fathers, and was buried in David’s city.
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 3:14 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.