Job 4:21
Are not their tent cords pulled up, so that they die without wisdom?’
BSB
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.
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.
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.
Rare words are the text's own signal of a deliberate thread: the fewer the occurrences, the more the places it appears belong together.
The walk8
Follow this verse’s cross-references two steps out. Each card is a verse this one points to, and beneath it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several different paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it. Every stop shows its own words, and every stop is a page.
Through
Isaiah 2:22Put no more trust in man, who has only the breath in his nostrils. Of what account is he?
leads to
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.
Put not your trust in princes, in mortal man, who cannot save.
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.
O LORD, what is man, that You regard him, the son of man that You think of him?
what is man that You are mindful of him, or the son of man that You care for him?
Through
Job 8:22Your enemies will be clothed in shame, and the tent of the wicked will be no more.”
leads to
I will clothe his enemies with shame, but the crown upon him will gleam.”
May those who gloat in my distress be ashamed and confounded; may those who exalt themselves over me be clothed in shame and reproach.
May my accusers be clothed with disgrace; may they wear their shame like a robe.