Job 13:12
in Job 13Your maxims are proverbs of ashes; your defenses are defenses of clay.
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
Your memorable sayings are proverbs of ashes, Your defences are defences of clay.
KJV
Your remembrances are like unto ashes, your bodies to bodies of clay.
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This verse in Job 13
Commentary
10 notes on this verseYour remembrances are like unto ashes - Your memorable sayings are proverbs of dust. This is properly the meaning of the original: זכרניכם משלי אפר zichroneycem mishley epher. This he speaks in reference to the ancient and reputedly wise sayings which they had so copiously quoted against him. Your bodies to bodies of clay - This clause is variously translated: Your swelling heaps are swelling heaps of mire.
This site's exposition
Surely He would rebuke you
on Job 13:10-12
"Surely He would rebuke you if you secretly showed partiality" presses the charge, since even a private partiality for God's side will meet His rebuke. "Your maxims are proverbs of ashes" reduces their sayings to what a fire leaves, maxims that crumble under the weight they are made to bear.
This site's exposition
Your maxims are proverbs of ashes
Clarke reads the maxims as the memorable sayings of the ancients that the friends had quoted against Job, and the Hebrew as proverbs of dust. Wesley hears in the line the mouldering of all that is mortal. Their defenses crumble like clay.
The record, by era
The Medieval Church3 voices
The author seems to say that Job's friends will abstain from pronouncing reproaches, because of the fear of God and the terror that he inspires.
Your remembrances are like unto ashes. All that are confounded to this present state of being by an earthly temper of mind, mean, by all that they do, to leave the remembrance of themselves to the world. Some in the toils of war, some in the towering walls of edifices, some in eloquent books of this world's lore, they are eagerly toiling and striving and building up for themselves a name of remembrance.
Because they had vainly promised Job that even after death he would live in the memory of men (11:18), in his turn he promises the contrary to them as though mocking them, saying, "Your memory will be like ashes." For as ashes after the consumption …
The Puritans and the Awakening2 voices
): " Your remembrances (all that in you for which you hope to be remembered when you are gone) are like unto ashes, worthless and weak, and easily trampled on and blown away. Your bodies are like bodies of clay, mouldering and coming to nothing.
quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — leading-punctuation+unbalanced-parens+odd-straight-quotes
Remembrance - Mouldering and coming to nothing. And the consideration of our mortality should make us afraid of offending God. Your mementos are like unto ashes, contemptible and unprofitable.
2 more voices on this verse
The Puritans and the Awakening1 voice
Your remembrances are like unto ashes,....
The Nineteenth Century1 voice
A commentator
Albert Barnes1798–1870
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
proposed
Your remembrances are like unto ashes - There has been a considerable variety in the interpretation of this verse. The meaning in our common version is certainly not very clear. The Vulgate renders it, Memoria vestra comparabitur cineri. The Septuagint, Ἀποβήσεται δὲ ὑμῶν τὸ γαυρίαμα Ἶσα σποδᾷ Apobēsetai de humōn to gauriama isa spodō - “your boasting shall pass away like ashes.” Dr. Good renders it, “Dust are your stored-up sayings.” Noyes, “Your maxims are words of dust.” The word rendered “remembrances” זכרון zı̂krôn means properly “remembrance, memory,” Jos 4:7; Eze 12:14; then a “memento,” or “record;” then a “memorable saying, a maxim.” This is probably the meaning here; and the reference is to the apothegms or proverbs which they had so profusely uttered, and which they regarded as so profound and worthy of attention, but which Job was disposed to regard as most common-place, and to treat with contempt. Are like unto ashes - That is, they are valueless. See the notes at Isa 44:20. Their maxims had about the same relation to true wisdom which ashes have to substantial and nutritious food. The Hebrew here (אפר משׁלי mâshaly 'êpher) is rather, “are parables of ashes;” - the word משׁל mâshâl meaning similitude, parable, proverb. This interpretation gives more force and beauty to the passage. Your bodies - - גביכם gabēykem Vulgate, “cervices.” Septuagint, τὸ δὲ σῶμα πήλινον to de sōma pēlinon - but the body is clay. The Hebrew word גב gab, means something gibbous (from where the word “gibbous” is derived), convex, arched; hence, the “back” of animals or human beings, Eze 10:12; the boss of a shield or buckler - the “gibbous,” or exterior convex part - Job 15:26; and then, according to Gesenius, an entrenchment, a fortress, a strong-hold. […]
How the passage was read
What the Jewish commentators add
your memorials are compared to ashes Your memorials are compared to ashes. You expect to be compared to Abraham, who said (Genesis:27), “I am only dust and ashes.”
1 more on this passage, in their own words ▾
and let come upon me what may Whatever comes upon me because of the sin of my outcry, let it come upon me and do not care. For what reason must I bring up and hold..
This section is reception history: how the passage was read and kept in the Jewish tradition. Where a reading parts from an essential of the Christian faith, the section says so at that point.
Texts and citation data: Sefaria; each excerpt follows its version’s licence. 4 further sources are cited on this chapter that carry no English text this site may quote or only restate the verse.
The words behind it
6 Hebrew wordsEvery Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.
| Hebrew | Sound | Meaning | Word study | In the Bible |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| זִֽ֭כְרֹנֵיכֶם | zikhroneikhem | memorials your | H2146 → | |
| מִשְׁלֵי־ | mishlei- | [are] proverbs of | H4912 → | 39 times |
| אֵ֑פֶר | ʾefer | ash[es] | H665 → | 22 times |
| לְגַבֵּי־ | legabei- | [are] <to> defenses of | H1354 → | 13 times |
| חֹ֝֗מֶר | chomer | clay | H2563 → | 31 times |
| גַּבֵּיכֶֽם׃ | gabeikhem | defenses your | H1354 → | 13 times |
זִֽ֭כְרֹנֵיכֶםmemorials your
zikhroneikhemH2146 →
מִשְׁלֵי־[are] proverbs of
mishlei-H4912 →39 times
אֵ֑פֶרash[es]
ʾeferH665 →22 times
לְגַבֵּי־[are] <to> defenses of
legabei-H1354 →13 times
חֹ֝֗מֶרclay
chomerH2563 →31 times
גַּבֵּיכֶֽם׃defenses your
gabeikhemH1354 →13 times
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
The walk
8 stopsEach card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.
Through
Genesis 2:7Then the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and the man became a living being.
it leads to
- Ecclesiastes 12:7
before the dust returns to the ground from which it came and the spirit returns to God who gave it.
- Job 33:4
The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.
- 1 Corinthians 15:45
So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being;” the last Adam a life-giving spirit.
- Isaiah 64:8
But now, O LORD, You are our Father; we are the clay, and You are the potter; we are all the work of Your hand.
- Acts 17:25
Nor is He served by human hands, as if He needed anything, because He Himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.
- Ecclesiastes 12:7
Through
2 Corinthians 5:1Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is dismantled, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.
it leads to
- Job 19:25–26
But I know that my Redeemer lives, and in the end He will stand upon the earth.
- 1 John 3:2
Beloved, we are now children of God, and what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know that when Christ appears, we will be like Him, for we will see Him as…
- 2 Peter 1:13–14
I think it is right to refresh your memory as long as I live in the tent of my body,
- Job 19:25–26
Where this verse is studied
On this page
Studies1
About Job
This page draws on 10 works. Open the list of works
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes on the Book of Job; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Gregory the Dialogist, Morals on the Book of Job, Book XI; Ishodad of Merv, COMMENTARY ON JOB 13:11; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763); John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Job.