Doth not their excellency which is in them go away? they die, even without wisdom.
Parallel translations
- WEB Isn’t their tent cord plucked up within them? They die, and that without wisdom.’
- BSB Are not their tent cords pulled up, so that they die 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 obey not, they shall perish by the sword, and they shall die without knowledge.
- Luke 16:22–23And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried;
- Job 8:22They that hate thee shall be clothed with shame; and the dwelling place of the wicked shall come to nought.
- Ps 39:11When thou with rebukes dost correct man for iniquity, thou makest his beauty to consume away like a moth: surely every man is vanity. Selah.
- Ps 49:14Like sheep they are laid in the grave; death shall feed on them; and the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning; and their beauty shall consume in the grave from their dwelling.
- Isa 14:16They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms;
- Ps 49:20Man that is in honour, and understandeth not, is like the beasts that perish.
- Jas 1:11For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth: so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways.
- Ps 39:5Behold, thou hast made my days as an handbreadth; and mine age is as nothing before thee: verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity. Selah.
- Ps 146:3–4Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help.
- Luke 12:20But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?
- Job 18:21Surely such are the dwellings of the wicked, and this is the place of him that knoweth not God.
- Isa 2:22Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils: for wherein is he to be accounted of?
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
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