Job 14:11
As waters fail from a lake and a river wastes away and dries up,
English Standard Version (ESV)
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Job 14:11
As waters fail from a lake and a river wastes away and dries up,
English Standard Version (ESV)
This page isn't yet indexed by search engines.
Job isn't just comparing death to a dried-up riverbed; he's highlighting how incredibly final it seems by pointing to a rare, almost impossible event: water failing from the sea itself. This isn't about evaporation or rivers running low, but a fundamental drying up, suggesting that just as these extraordinary water sources would never return to their former state, neither would a person who has died.
Job is wrestling with the finality of death, comparing human life to the irreversible drying up of bodies of water. He's not just talking about evaporation or seasonal changes, but about lakes and rivers that completely vanish, never to return to their former glory. This imagery sets up his desperate plea in the following verses: if even these once-mighty waters don't come back, how can he possibly hope to rise again after death?
Imagine a vast lake or a mighty river, the source of life and sustenance. Now picture it slowly disappearing, leaving behind cracked earth and dust. Job uses this vivid image to speak about a profound truth.
Job paints a picture of irreversible loss. He compares humanity's departure from life to waters that fail from a lake and a river that dries up. The key idea here is finality.
Job isn't just describing water; he's using it to emphasize something about us. What's the startling connection he's drawing between a drying riverbed and human existence?
Job uses this imagery of failing waters to draw a sharp contrast with human life, particularly after death.
This passage speaks of rivers flowing into the sea, yet the sea never overflows, highlighting the natural, unceasing cycle of water that Job contrasts with human mortality.
Isaiah 19:5-8This prophecy describes the drying up of the Nile and its waters failing, mirroring Job's imagery of natural elements ceasing to be and connecting it to God's judgment and restoration.
Jeremiah 51:36This verse uses the imagery of drying up the sea and making rivers run dry to describe Babylon's destruction, directly linking the failure of waters to finality and judgment, similar to Job's view of death.
Luke 16:23-24In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, the rich man, suffering in Hades, desperately asks for water, showing how the absolute finality of death, like dried-up waters, prevents any return or relief.
clarkeJob 14:11: "As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up:"
The waters fail from the sea - I believe this refers to evaporation, and nothing else. As the waters are evaporated from the sea, and the river in passing over the sandy desert is partly exsiccated, and partly absorbed; and yet the waters of the sea are not exhausted, as these vapors, being condensed, fall down in rain, and by means of rivers return again into the sea: so man is imperceptibly removed from his fe…
bensonJob 14:11: "As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up:"
Job 14:11 . As the waters fail from the sea — This may mean, either, 1st, As the waters go, or flow out from the sea, and return not thither again, Ecclesiastes 1:7 : or, 2d, As waters, that is, some portion of the waters, are exhaled from the sea by the sun, or are received and sunk into the dry and thirsty earth: or, 3d, As the waters of the sea fail, when the sea forsakes the place into which it used to flow;…
Job isn't just comparing death to a dried-up riverbed; he's highlighting how incredibly final it seems by pointing to a rare, almost impossible event: water failing from the sea itself. This isn't about evaporation or rivers running low, but a fundamental drying up, suggesting that just as these extraordinary water sources would never return to their former state, neither would a person who has died.
Job is wrestling with the finality of death, comparing human life to the irreversible drying up of bodies of water. He's not just talking about evaporation or seasonal changes, but about lakes and rivers that completely vanish, never to return to their former glory. This imagery sets up his desperate plea in the following verses: if even these once-mighty waters don't come back, how can he possibly hope to rise again after death?
Job is wrestling with the finality of death, comparing human life to the irreversible drying up of bodies of water. He's not just talking about evaporation or seasonal changes, but about lakes and rivers that completely vanish, never to return to their former glory. This imagery sets up his desperate plea in the following verses: if even these once-mighty waters don't come back, how can he possibly hope to rise again after death?
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"As waters fail from a lake and a river wastes away and dries up," — Job isn't just comparing death to a dried-up riverbed; he's highlighting how incredibly final it seems by pointing to a rare, almost impossible event: water failing from the sea itself. This isn't…