Are not their tent cords pulled up, so that they die without wisdom?’
Parallel translations
- WEB Isn’t their tent cord plucked up within them? They die, and that without wisdom.’
- KJV Doth not their excellency which is in them go away? they die, even without wisdom.
- NKJV Does not their own excellence go away? They die, even without wisdom.’
- NASB ‘Is their tent-cord not pulled out within them? They die, yet without wisdom.’
- NLT Their tent-cords are pulled and the tent collapses, and they die in ignorance.
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
Their tent cord is pulled up and they die without wisdom. The picture is of life suddenly collapsed like a tent struck at the end of a journey.
Overview
Using the image of a tent peg or cord plucked up, Eliphaz portrays death as abrupt dismantling, and notes people die without ever attaining true wisdom. This melancholy realism about mortality and human ignorance frames the book's larger quest for wisdom. The New Testament names Christ as the wisdom of God, the one in whom the riddle of suffering and death finds its answer.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 13
- Job 36:12But if they do not obey, then they perish by the sword and die without knowledge.
- Luke 16:22–23One day the beggar died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s side. And the rich man also died and was buried.
- Job 8:22Your enemies will be clothed in shame, and the tent of the wicked will be no more.”
- 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
- Ps 49:14Like sheep they are destined for Sheol. Death will be their shepherd. The upright will rule them in the morning, and their form will decay in Sheol, far from their lofty abode.
- Isa 14:16Those who see you will stare; they will ponder your fate: “Is this the man who shook the earth and made the kingdoms tremble,
- Ps 49:20A man who has riches without understanding is like the beasts that perish.
- Jas 1:11For the sun rises with scorching heat and withers the plant; its flower falls and its beauty is lost. So too, the rich man will fade away in the midst of his pursuits.
- Ps 39:5You, indeed, have made my days as handbreadths, and my lifetime as nothing before You. Truly each man at his best exists as but a breath. Selah
- Ps 146:3–4Put not your trust in princes, in mortal man, who cannot save.
- Luke 12:20But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be required of you. Then who will own what you have accumulated?’
- Job 18:21Surely such is the dwelling of the wicked and the place of one who does not know God.”
- Isa 2:22Put no more trust in man, who has only the breath in his nostrils. Of what account is he?
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 4:21 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.