“When a cloud vanishes, it is gone; In the same way one who goes down to Sheol does not come 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.
- BSB As a cloud vanishes and is gone, so he who goes down to Sheol does not come back up.
- NKJV As the cloud disappears and vanishes away, So he who goes down to the grave 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 have turned on me. They chase my honor as the wind. My welfare has passed away as a cloud.
- 2 Sam 14:14For we must die, and are like water spilled on the ground, which can’t be gathered up again; neither does God take away life, but devises means, that he who is banished not be an outcast from him.
- Job 10:21before I go where I shall not return from, to the land of darkness and of the shadow of death;
- 2 Sam 12:23But now 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 man dies, and is laid low. Yes, man gives up the spirit, and where is he?
- Ps 39:13Oh spare me, that I may recover strength, before I go away, and exist no more.”
- Job 16:22For when a few years have come, I shall go the way of no return.
- Isa 38:11I said, “I won’t see Yah, Yah in the land of the living. I will see man no more with the inhabitants of the world.
- Job 37:11Yes, he loads the thick cloud with moisture. He spreads abroad the cloud of his lightning.
- Job 11:8They are high as heaven. What can you do? They are deeper than Sheol. What can you know?
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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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.