“With rebukes You punish a person for wrongdoing; You consume like a moth what is precious to him; Certainly all mankind is mere breath! Selah
Parallel translations
- WEB When you rebuke and correct man for iniquity, You consume his wealth like a moth. Surely every man is but a breath.” Selah.
- KJV When thou with rebukes dost correct man for iniquity, thou makest his beauty to consume away like a moth: surely every man is vanity. Selah.
- BSB You discipline and correct a man for his iniquity, consuming like a moth what he holds dear; surely each man is but a vapor. Selah
- NKJV When with rebukes You correct man for iniquity, You make his beauty melt away like a moth; Surely every man is vapor. Selah
- NLT When you discipline us for our sins, you consume like a moth what is precious to us. Each of us is but a breath. Interlude
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 rebukes sin, He consumes a person's treasures like a moth, exposing human frailty. Again David concludes that everyone is but a breath.
Overview
God's correcting discipline dissolves what we prize as a moth eats away cloth. The repeated refrain 'every man is but a breath' frames David's whole meditation on mortality. It teaches that lasting security is found only in God, not in perishable goods.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 13
- Job 13:28though I am decaying like a rotten thing, like a garment that is moth-eaten.
- Heb 12:6For whom the Lord loves, he chastens, and scourges every son whom he receives.”
- Isa 50:9Behold, the Lord Yahweh will help me! Who is he who will condemn me? Behold, they will all grow old like a garment. The moths will eat them up.
- Rev 3:19As many as I love, I reprove and chasten. Be zealous therefore, and repent.
- 1 Cor 11:30–32For this cause many among you are weak and sickly, and not a few sleep.
- 1 Cor 5:5are to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
- Ps 102:10–11Because of your indignation and your wrath, for you have taken me up, and thrown me away.
- Job 30:30My skin grows black and peels from me. My bones are burned with heat.
- 2 Pet 2:16but he was rebuked for his own disobedience. A mute donkey spoke with a man’s voice and stopped the madness of the prophet.
- Job 4:19How much more, those who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, who are crushed before the moth!
- Hos 5:12Therefore I am to Ephraim like a moth, and to the house of Judah like rottenness.
- Ps 38:1–8A Psalm by David, for a memorial. Yahweh, don’t rebuke me in your wrath, neither chasten me in your hot displeasure.
- Ps 90:7–10For we are consumed in your anger. We are troubled in your wrath.
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 39:11 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.