how much more those who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundations are in the dust, who can be crushed like a moth!
Parallel translations
- WEB How much more, those who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, who are crushed before the moth!
- KJV How much less in them that dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, which are crushed before the moth?
- NKJV How much more those who dwell in houses of clay, Whose foundation is in the dust, Who are crushed before a moth?
- NASB ‘How much more those who live in houses of clay, Whose foundation is in the dust, Who are crushed before the moth!
- NLT how much less will he trust people made of clay! They are made of dust, crushed as easily as a moth.
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
How much more frail are people, who live in houses of clay founded in dust and are crushed like a moth. It stresses human weakness and mortality before God.
Overview
Humans are described as dwelling in bodies of clay, rooted in dust, easily destroyed. The imagery recalls the creation of Adam from the ground and the curse of returning to dust. While humbling, this frailty is precisely what the incarnation answers, for the eternal Son took flesh, sharing our dust to redeem it and to raise mortal bodies to imperishable life.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 17
- Job 10:9Please remember that You molded me like clay. Would You now return me to dust?
- Gen 2:7Then the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and the man became a living being.
- Gen 3:19By the sweat of your brow you will eat your bread, until you return to the ground—because out of it were you taken. For dust you are, and to dust you shall return.”
- Job 33:6I am just like you before God; I was also formed from clay.
- Job 13:28So man wastes away like something rotten, like a moth-eaten garment.
- 2 Cor 5:1Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is dismantled, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.
- Job 13:12Your maxims are proverbs of ashes; your defenses are defenses of clay.
- Gen 18:27Then Abraham answered, “Now that I have ventured to speak to the Lord—though I am but dust and ashes—
- 2 Cor 4:7Now we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this surpassingly great power is from God and not from us.
- Ps 39:11You discipline and correct a man for his iniquity, consuming like a moth what he holds dear; surely each man is but a vapor. Selah
- Job 14:2Like a flower, he comes forth, then withers away; like a fleeting shadow, he does not endure.
- 1 Pet 1:24For, “All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall,
- Ps 103:15–16As for man, his days are like grass—he blooms like a flower of the field;
- Ps 90:5–7You whisk them away in their sleep; they are like the new grass of the morning—
- Job 22:16They were snatched away before their time, and their foundations were swept away by a flood.
- Eccl 12:7before the dust returns to the ground from which it came and the spirit returns to God who gave it.
- Ps 146:4When his spirit departs, he returns to the ground; on that very day his plans perish.
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 4:19 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.