Job 4:21
in Job 4Are not their tent cords pulled up, so that they die without wisdom?’
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
Is not their tent-cord plucked up within them? They die, and that without wisdom.
KJV
Doth not their excellency which is in them go away? they die, even without wisdom.
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This verse in Job 4
Commentary
12 notes on this verseA commentator
Albert Barnes1798–1870
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
Doth not their excellency ... - Dr. Good renders this, “Their fluttering round is over with them,” by a very forced construction of the passage. Translators and expositors have been very much divided in opinion as to its meaning; but the sense seems to be, that whatever is excellent in people is torn away or removed. Their excellence does not keep them from death, and they are taken off before they are truly wise. The word “excellency” here refers not only to moral excellency or virtue, but everything in which they excel others.
This site's exposition
If God puts no trust in His servants
on Job 4:18-21
If God "charges His angels with error," how much more those "who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundations are in the dust". Clarke reads the moth as the frailest of creatures, the measure of how quickly a house is destroyed. The speech ends with men who "die without wisdom".
This site's exposition
Are not their tent cords pulled up
The Hebrew word for tent cords can also mean what is excellent, and the King James reads their excellency. Clarke and Wesley take that excellency as beauty, strength and wisdom, all pulled up at death. Here men die like a tent pulled down.
The record, by era
The Church Fathers1 voice
Eliphaz, still clinging to the same principle … that Job's critical circumstances were due to Job's own sins, adds these words, "Since they could not help themselves through virtue by repenting of their evils, these afflictions befell them." And Eliphaz suggests that he fully comprehends …
The Medieval Church2 voices
But because there are some who apply remedies against sins even though they do not understand them, like David who said, "From hidden faults cleanse me, O Lord," (Ps. 18:12) he adds, "Those, however, who will remain" from the number of those who perish in …
But they that have been left shall be taken away from among them. Whom else do we understand by 'the left,' but all the despised of this world? whom whilst the present life chooses not for any use of honour, it 'leaves' as being the least and most worthless.
The Puritans and the Awakening2 voices
4 Thy words have upholden him that was falling, and thou hast strengthened the feeble knees. 5 But now it is come upon thee, and thou faintest; it toucheth thee, and thou art troubled. 6 Is not this thy fear, thy confidence, thy hope, and the uprightness of thy ways?
quarantine:scripture (2026-07-29) — verbatim-scripture
Excellency - Whatsoever is by common estimation excellent in men, all their natural, and moral, and civil accomplishments, as high birth, great riches, power and wisdom, these are so far from preserving men from perishing, that they perish themselves, together with those houses of clay in which they are lodged.
4 more voices on this verse
The Puritans and the Awakening2 voices
Doth not their excellency which is in them go away?....
The deaths of others are much the subject of common talk, but little the subject of serious thought. Some think the eternal damnation of sinners is here spoken of, as well as their temporal death: They are destroyed, or broken to pieces, by death, from morning to evening; and, if they repent not, they perish for ever (so some read it),
The Nineteenth Century2 voices
A commentator
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown1802–1910
Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)
The design of the spirit is to show that the continued existence of weak man proves the inconceivable wisdom and holiness of God, which alone save man from ruin [UMBREIT]. BENGEL shows from Scripture that God's holiness (Hebrew, kadosh) comprehends all His excellencies and attributes.
Doth not their excellency - go away! - Personal beauty, corporeal strength, powerful eloquence, and various mental endowments, pass away, or are plucked up by the roots; they are no more seen or heard among men, and their memory soon perisheth. They die, even without wisdom - If wisdom means the pursuit of the best end, by the most legitimate and appropriate means, the great mass of mankind appear to perish without it. But, if we consider the subject more closely, we shall find that all men die in a state of comparative ignorance. With all our boasted science and arts, how little do we know! Do we know any thing to perfection that belongs either to the material or spiritual world? Do we understand even what matter is? What is its essence? Do we understand what spirit is? Then, what is its essence? Almost all the phenomena of nature, its grandest operations, and the laws of the heavenly bodies, have been explained on the principle of gravitation or attraction; but in what does this consist? Who can answer? We can traverse every part of the huge and trackless ocean by means of the compass; but who understands the nature of magnetism on which all this depends? We eat and drink in order to maintain life; but what is nutrition, and how is it effected? This has never been explained. Life depends on respiration for its continuance; but by what kind of action is it, that in a moment the lungs separate the oxygen, which is friendly to life, from the nitrogen, which would destroy it; suddenly absorbing the one, and expelling the other? Who, among the generation of hypothesis-framers, has guessed this out? Life is continued by the circulation of the blood; but by what power and law does it circulate? Have the systole and diastole of the heart, on which this circulation depends, ever been satisfactorily explained? Most certainly not. […]
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| הֲלֹא־ | halo'- | ¿ not | H3808 → | 5168 times |
| נִסַּ֣ע | nisa' | has it been pulled up | H5265 → | |
| יִתְרָ֣ם | yitram | tent cord their | H3499 → | 102 times |
| בָּ֑ם | bam | in them | ||
| יָ֝מ֗וּתוּ | yamutu | will they die? | H4191 → | 839 times |
| וְלֹ֣א | velo' | and not | H3808 → | 5168 times |
| בְחָכְמָֽה׃ | vechakhemah | with wisdom | H2451 → | 153 times |
הֲלֹא־¿ not
halo'-H3808 →5168 times
נִסַּ֣עhas it been pulled up
nisa'H5265 →
יִתְרָ֣םtent cord their
yitramH3499 →102 times
בָּ֑םin them
bam
יָ֝מ֗וּתוּwill they die?
yamutuH4191 →839 times
וְלֹ֣אand not
velo'H3808 →5168 times
בְחָכְמָֽה׃with wisdom
vechakhemahH2451 →153 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
Isaiah 2:22Put no more trust in man, who has only the breath in his nostrils. Of what account is he?
it leads to
- Jeremiah 17:5
This is what the LORD says: “Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind, who makes the flesh his strength and turns his heart from the LORD.
- Psalms 146:3
Put not your trust in princes, in mortal man, who cannot save.
- James 4:14
You do not even know what will happen tomorrow! What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.
- Psalms 144:3–4
O LORD, what is man, that You regard him, the son of man that You think of him?
- Psalms 8:4
what is man that You are mindful of him, or the son of man that You care for him?
- Jeremiah 17:5
Through
Job 8:22Your enemies will be clothed in shame, and the tent of the wicked will be no more.”
it leads to
- Psalms 132:18
I will clothe his enemies with shame, but the crown upon him will gleam.”
- Psalms 35:26
May those who gloat in my distress be ashamed and confounded; may those who exalt themselves over me be clothed in shame and reproach.
- Psalms 109:29
May my accusers be clothed with disgrace; may they wear their shame like a robe.
- Psalms 132:18
Where this verse is studied
On this page
About Job
This page draws on 9 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); Didymus the Blind, COMMENTARY ON JOB 4:20-21; Gregory the Dialogist, Morals on the Book of Job, Book V; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; 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.