You hide Your face, they are terrified; You take away their breath, they perish And return to their 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.
- BSB When You hide Your face, they are terrified; when You take away their breath, they die and return to dust.
- NKJV You hide Your face, they are troubled; You take away their breath, they die 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 set his heart on himself, If he gathered to himself his spirit and his breath,
- Eccl 12:7and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.
- Ps 146:4His spirit departs, and he returns to the earth. In that very day, his thoughts perish.
- Acts 17:25neither is he served by men’s hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he himself gives to all life and breath, and all things.
- Gen 3:19By the sweat of your face will you eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken. For you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
- Ps 30:7You, Yahweh, when you favored me, made my mountain stand strong; but when you hid your face, I was troubled.
- Ps 90:3You turn man to destruction, saying, “Return, you children of men.”
- Job 10:9Remember, I beg you, that you have fashioned me as clay. Will you bring me into dust again?
- Deut 31:17Then my anger shall be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them, and I will hide my face from them, and they shall be devoured, and many evils and troubles shall come on them; so that they will say in that day, ‘Haven’t these evils come on us because our God is not among us?’
- Job 13:24Why hide you your face, and hold me for your enemy?
- Job 34:29When he gives quietness, who then can condemn? When he hides his face, who then can see him? Alike whether to a nation, or to a man,
- Rom 8:20–22For the creation was subjected to vanity, not of its own will, but because of him 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.