Job 14:17
in Job 14My transgression would be sealed in a bag, and You would cover over my iniquity.
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
My transgression is sealed up in a bag, And thou fastenest up mine iniquity.
KJV
My transgression is sealed up in a bag, and thou sewest up mine iniquity.
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This verse in Job 14
Commentary
10 notes on this verseA commentator
Albert Barnes1798–1870
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
My transgression is sealed up - The verb rendered sealed up (חתם châtham) means to seal, to close, to shut up; see the notes at Isa 8:16; compare the notes at Job 9:7. It was common with the ancients to use a seal where we use a lock. Money was counted and put into a bag, and a seal was attached to it. Hence, a seal might be put to a bag, as a sort of certificate of the amount, and to save the necessity of counting it again. In a bag - - בצרור bı̂tserôr.
This site's exposition
You would count my steps
on Job 14:16-17
Verse 16 speaks of what God would do: "You would count my steps, but would not keep track of my sin". Job pictures "My transgression would be sealed in a bag". Gill gives the figure of a merchant's sealed bag, its contents unchanged until the day it is opened.
This site's exposition
sealed in a bag
Barnes explains that the ancients sealed a counted bag of money where a lock would now be used. Clarke sees evidence sealed and kept for trial. In the hope of verses 13 to 17, Job pictures his transgression sealed away and his iniquity covered.
The record, by era
The Medieval Church2 voices
Ver. 17. Thou hast sealed up as it were in a bag my transgressions; but Thou hast healed mine iniquity. Our 'transgressions are sealed up as it were in a bag,' in that that thing which we ourselves do in outward act, except we wash away by penance in the mean while, is kept in the secresy of God's judgments under a kind of hiding, that one day it may also come forth out of the bag of secresy into the publicity of the Judgment.
Second, divine providence is attentive to human acts in that he preserves the good and wicked deeds of men in his memory to repay them with good or evil, and so he continues, "You have sealed my faults in a sack." For what one seals …
The Puritans and the Awakening3 voices
Sealed - As writings or other choice things, that they may all be brought forth upon occasion, and not one of them forgotten. Thou keepest all my sins in thy memory.
My transgression is sealed up in a bag,....
God does indeed see all our sins; he sees sin in his own people; but he is not severe in reckoning with us, nor is the law ever stretched against us, but we are punished less than our iniquities deserve. God does indeed seal and sew up, against the day of wrath, the transgression of the impenitent, but the sins of his people he blots out as a cloud.
2 more voices on this verse
The Nineteenth Century2 voices
A commentator
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown1802–1910
Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)
proposed
Is shut up in eternal oblivion, that is, God thenceforth will think no more of my former sins. To cover sins is to completely forgive them (Ps 32:1; Purses of money in the East are usually sealed. sewest up--rather, "coverest"; akin to an Arabic word, "to color over," to forget wholly.
quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — unbalanced-parens
My transgression is sealed up in a bag - An allusion to the custom of collecting evidence of state transgressions, sealing them up in a bag, and presenting them to the judges and officers of state to be examined, in order to trial and judgment. Just at this time (July, 1820) charges of state transgressions, sealed up in a Green Bag, and presented to the two houses of parliament, for the examination of a secret committee, are making a considerable noise in the land. Some suppose the allusion is to money sealed up in bags; which is common in the East. This includes two ideas: 1. Job’s transgressions were all numbered; not one was passed by. 2. They were sealed up; so that none of them could be lost. These bags were indifferently sewed or sealed, the two words in the text.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| חָתֻ֣ם | chatum | [will be] sealed up | H2856 → | 26 times |
| בִּצְר֣וֹר | bitzror | in a bag | H6872 → | |
| פִּשְׁעִ֑י | pishi | transgression my | H6588 → | 93 times |
| וַ֝תִּטְפֹּ֗ל | vatitpol | and you have smeared | H2950 → | |
| עַל־ | ʾal- | over | H5921 → | 5755 times |
| עֲוֹנִֽי׃ | ʾavoni | iniquity my | H5771 → | 233 times |
חָתֻ֣ם[will be] sealed up
chatumH2856 →26 times
בִּצְר֣וֹרin a bag
bitzrorH6872 →
פִּשְׁעִ֑יtransgression my
pishiH6588 →93 times
וַ֝תִּטְפֹּ֗לand you have smeared
vatitpolH2950 →
עַל־over
ʾal-H5921 →5755 times
עֲוֹנִֽי׃iniquity my
ʾavoniH5771 →233 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
Deuteronomy 32:34“Have I not stored up these things, sealed up within My vaults?
it leads to
- Romans 2:5
But because of your hard and unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of wrath, when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.
Reached by 2 separate paths from here.
- Hosea 13:12
The iniquity of Ephraim is bound up; his sin is stored up.
- Jeremiah 2:22
Although you wash with lye and use an abundance of soap, the stain of your guilt is still before Me,” declares the Lord GOD.
- Romans 2:5
Through
Job 21:19It is said that God lays up one’s punishment for his children. Let God repay the man himself, so he will know it.
it leads to
- Exodus 20:5
You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on their children to the third and fourth…
- Ezekiel 18:19–20
Yet you may ask, ‘Why shouldn’t the son bear the iniquity of his father?’ Since the son has done what is just and right, carefully observing all My statutes, he will surely live.
- Isaiah 53:4–6
Surely He took on our infirmities and carried our sorrows; yet we considered Him stricken by God, struck down and afflicted.
- Jeremiah 31:29
“In those days, it will no longer be said: ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the teeth of the children are set on edge.’
- Exodus 20:5
Through
Hosea 13:12The iniquity of Ephraim is bound up; his sin is stored up.
it leads to
- Deuteronomy 32:34–35
“Have I not stored up these things, sealed up within My vaults?
- Deuteronomy 32:34–35
About Job
This page draws on 11 works. Open the list of works
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Albert Barnes, Notes on the Book of Job; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments; Gregory the Dialogist, Morals on the Book of Job, Book XII; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; 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.