As a cloud vanishes and is gone, so he who goes down to Sheol does not come back up.
Parallel translations
- WEB As the cloud is consumed and vanishes away, so he who goes down to Sheol shall come up no more.
- KJV As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away: so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more.
- NKJV As the cloud disappears and vanishes away, So he who goes down to the grave does not come up.
- NASB “When a cloud vanishes, it is gone; In the same way one who goes down to Sheol does not come up.
- NLT Just as a cloud dissipates and vanishes, those who die will not come back.
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
As a cloud dissolves and disappears, Job says, so the one who goes down to the grave does not return. He laments death's apparent irreversibility.
Overview
Using the image of a vanishing cloud, Job voices the Old Testament's sober view of Sheol, the realm of the dead, from which there is no ordinary return to earthly life. Job speaks from limited revelation and deep grief. The fuller hope of resurrection awaits its clearest light in Christ, who conquered the grave (1 Corinthians 15:20-22).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 10
- Job 30:15Terrors are turned loose against me; they drive away my dignity as by the wind, and my prosperity has passed like a cloud.
- 2 Sam 14:14For surely we will die and be like water poured out on the ground, which cannot be recovered. Yet God does not take away a life; but He devises ways that the banished one may not be cast out from Him.
- Job 10:21before I go—never to return—to a land of darkness and gloom,
- 2 Sam 12:23But now that he is dead, why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me.”
- Job 14:10–14But a man dies and is laid low; he breathes his last, and where is he?
- Ps 39:13Turn Your gaze away from me, that I may again be cheered before I depart and am no more.”
- Job 16:22For when only a few years are past I will go the way of no return.
- Isa 38:11I said, “I will never again see the LORD, even the LORD, in the land of the living; I will no longer look on mankind with those who dwell in this world.
- Job 37:11He loads the clouds with moisture; He scatters His lightning through them.
- Job 11:8They are higher than the heavens—what can you do? They are deeper than Sheol—what can you know?
Themes, concepts, people & topics
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.
Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.
Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
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 7:9 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.