When You hide Your face, they are terrified; when You take away their breath, they die and return to dust.
Parallel translations
- WEB You hide your face: they are troubled; you take away their breath: they die, and return to the dust.
- KJV Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled: thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust.
- NKJV You hide Your face, they are troubled; You take away their breath, they die and return to their dust.
- NASB You hide Your face, they are terrified; You take away their breath, they perish And return to their dust.
- NLT But if you turn away from them, they panic. When you take away their breath, they die and turn again to dust.
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
When God hides His face the creatures are dismayed, and when He takes their breath they die and return to dust. All life hangs on His sustaining presence.
Overview
Just as God's provision gives life, the withdrawal of His face and breath brings death. Every creature's existence is moment by moment dependent on Him. This sober truth magnifies the gift of life in Christ, who conquers death and raises the dust to new and unending life.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 12
- Job 34:14–15If He were to set His heart to it and withdraw His Spirit and breath,
- 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.
- Acts 17:25Nor is He served by human hands, as if He needed anything, because He Himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.
- 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.”
- Ps 30:7O LORD, You favored me; You made my mountain stand strong. When You hid Your face, I was dismayed.
- Ps 90:3You return man to dust, saying, “Return, O sons of mortals.”
- Job 10:9Please remember that You molded me like clay. Would You now return me to dust?
- Deut 31:17On that day My anger will burn against them, and I will abandon them and hide My face from them, so that they will be consumed, and many troubles and afflictions will befall them. On that day they will say, ‘Have not these disasters come upon us because our God is no longer with us?’
- Job 13:24Why do You hide Your face and consider me as Your enemy?
- Job 34:29But when He remains silent, who can condemn Him? When He hides His face, who can see Him? Yet He watches over both man and nation,
- Rom 8:20–22For the creation was subjected to futility, not by its own will, but because of the One who subjected it, in hope
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
The Psalms are Christ's own prayer book and a gallery of his portraits — the suffering one of Psalm 22, the risen Lord of Psalm 16, the priest-king of Psalm 110, the Son to whom the nations are given.
How Psalms 104:29 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.