Job 17:14
in Job 17and say to corruption, ‘You are my father,’ and to the worm, ‘My mother,’ or ‘My sister,’
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
If I have said to corruption, Thou art my father; To the worm, Thou art my mother, and my sister;
KJV
I have said to corruption, Thou art my father: to the worm, Thou art my mother, and my sister.
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This verse in Job 17
Commentary
10 notes on this verseI have said to corruption - I came from a corrupted stock, and I must go to corruption again. The Hebrew might be thus rendered: To the ditch I have called, Thou art my father. To the worm, Thou art my mother and my sister. I am in the nearest state of affinity to dissolution and corruption: I may well call them my nearest relations, as I shall soon be blended with them.
This site's exposition
They have turned night into day
on Job 17:12-14
With "If I look for Sheol as my home" the grave becomes his home. He gives corruption and the worm the names of father, mother and sister, the relations he has lost. Delitzsch notes the boldness of naming decay as kin.
This site's exposition
say to corruption
Job claims the grave's family as his own, calling the pit his father and the worm his mother and sister. The Hebrew word, Barnes notes, means a pit or grave. Henry explains the kinship: the body was formed from the earth and returns to it.
The record, by era
The Medieval Church2 voices
A commentator
Gregory the DialogistMorals on the Book of Job, Book XIII · Written before 604.
proposed
Ver. 14. I have said to corruption, Thou art my father, and to the worm, Thou art my mother and my sister. What does this mean, that he said to corruption, Thou art my father; saving that every man descends from an already corrupted origin? and hence it is added, And to the worm, Thou art my mother and my sister; in this way, viz. that we come into this world once from corruption itself, and along with corruption itself.
As a man who takes his origin when he is born from his parents by reason of which he establishes an affinity with them, so after death, lying in the grave he is dissolved into corruption and maggots which are born from his body, and …
The Puritans and the Awakening3 voices
): I have cried to corruption (that is, to the grave, where the body will corrupt), Thou art my father (for our bodies were formed out of the earth), and to the worms there, You are my mother and my sister, to whom I am allied (for man is a worm ) and with whom I must be conversant, for the worms shall cover us, ch. xxi.
quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — leading-punctuation+unbalanced-parens
Corruption - Hebrew. to the pit of corruption, the grave. Father - I am near a-kin to thee, and thou wilt receive and keep me in thy house, as parents do their children.
I have said to corruption, thou art my father,....
2 more voices on this verse
The Puritans and the Awakening1 voice
9 The righteous also shall hold on his way, and he that hath clean hands shall be stronger and stronger. Job's discourse is here somewhat broken and interrupted, and he passes suddenly from one thing to another, as is usual with men in trouble; but we may reduce what is here said to three heads:-- I.
The Nineteenth Century1 voice
A commentator
Albert Barnes1798–1870
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
proposed
I have said - Margin, cried, or called. The sense is, “I say,” or “I thus address the grave.” To corruption - The word used here (שׁחת shachath) means properly a pit, or pit-fall, Psa 7:15; Psa 9:15; a cistern, or a ditch, Job 9:31; or the sepulchre, or grave, Psa 30:9; Job 33:18, Job 33:30. The Septuagint renders it here by θανάτον thanaton - death. Jerome (Vulgate), putredini dixi. According to Gesenius (Lex), the word never has the sense of corruption. Schultens, however, Rosenmuller, and others, understand it in the sense of corruption or putrefaction. This accords, certainly, with the other hemistich, and better constitutes a parallelism with the “worm” than the word “grave” would. It seems probable that this is the sense here; and if the proper meaning of the word is a pit, or the grave, it here denotes the grave, as containing a dead and moulderling body. Thou art my father - “I am nearly allied to it. I sustain to it a relation like that of a child to a father.” The idea seems to be that of family likeness; and the object is to present the most striking and impressive view of his sad and sorrowful condition. He was so diseased, so wretched, so full of sores and of corruption (see Job 7:5), that he might be said to be the child of one mouldering in the grave, and was kindred to a family in the tomb! To the worm - The worm that feeds upon the dead. He belonged to that sad family where the body was putrifying, and where it was covered with worms; see the notes at Isa 14:11. My mother - I am so nearly allied to the worms, that the connection may be compared to that between a mother and her son. And my sister - “The sister here is mentioned rather than the brother, because the noun rendered worm in the Hebrew, is in the feminine gender.” Rosenmuller. The sense of the whole is, that Job felt that he belonged to the grave. He was destined to corruption. […]
How the passage was read
What the Jewish commentators add
To the pit I have called, ‘You are my father,’ to lodge there many days as though it was my father, since this is my hope.
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. 5 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
7 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| לַשַּׁ֣חַת | lashachat | to the pit | H7845 → | 23 times |
| קָ֭רָאתִי | karati | I have called out | H7121 → | 733 times |
| אָ֣בִי | ʾavi | [are] father my | H1 → | 1212 times |
| אָ֑תָּה | ʾatah | you | H859 → | 1094 times |
| אִמִּ֥י | ʾimi | O mother my | H517 → | 220 times |
| וַ֝אֲחֹתִ֗י | vaachoti | and sister my | H269 → | 114 times |
| לָֽרִמָּֽה׃ | larimah | to the maggot | H7415 → | 7 times |
לַשַּׁ֣חַתto the pit
lashachatH7845 →23 times
קָ֭רָאתִיI have called out
karatiH7121 →733 times
אָ֣בִי[are] father my
ʾaviH1 →1212 times
אָ֑תָּהyou
ʾatahH859 →1094 times
אִמִּ֥יO mother my
ʾimiH517 →220 times
וַ֝אֲחֹתִ֗יand sister my
vaachotiH269 →114 times
לָֽרִמָּֽה׃to the maggot
larimahH7415 →7 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
Psalms 16:10For You will not abandon my soul to Sheol, nor will You let Your Holy One see decay.
it leads to
- Acts 2:27–31
because You will not abandon my soul to Hades, nor will You let Your Holy One see decay.
- Acts 13:35–38
So also, He says in another Psalm: ‘You will not let Your Holy One see decay.’
- Psalms 49:15
But God will redeem my life from Sheol, for He will surely take me to Himself. Selah
- Revelation 1:18
the Living One. I was dead, and behold, now I am alive forever and ever! And I hold the keys of Death and of Hades.
- Revelation 20:13
The sea gave up its dead, and Death and Hades gave up their dead, and each one was judged according to his deeds.
- Acts 2:27–31
Through
Job 30:30My skin grows black and peels, and my bones burn with fever.
it leads to
- Lamentations 4:8
But now their appearance is blacker than soot; they are not recognized in the streets. Their skin has shriveled on their bones; it has become as dry as a stick.
- Psalms 102:3
For my days vanish like smoke, and my bones burn like glowing embers.
- Psalms 119:83
Though I am like a wineskin dried up by smoke, I do not forget Your statutes.
- Lamentations 4:8
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, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Book of Job; Gregory the Dialogist, Morals on the Book of Job, Book XIII; 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.