Job 34:15

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

All flesh would perish together, And man would turn again to dust.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Highlights

Septuagint runs longer here — compare

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יִגְוַ֣ע

gâvaʻ

H1478

“to die”

Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular

Appears 24× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Genesis 6:17

Full BDB Definition

Origin: a primitive root

TWOT: 328

to expire, die, perish, give up the ghost, yield up the ghost, be dead, be ready to die - (Qal) to expire, die, be about to die

About this verse

These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →

8: words
8: distinct lemmas
Wisdom: section

Notable vocabulary

The rarest word here is יִגְוַ֣ע to die H1478 — appearing just 24 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.

Shared distinctive vocabulary

יִגְוַ֣ע to die H1478 occurs in 23 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

2 verbs
4 nouns
1 preposition
1 adverb

Verb forms

יִגְוַ֣ע Qal · Imperfect
יָשֽׁוּב Qal · Imperfect

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 12 words from the Hebrew and 18 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — the Septuagint runs noticeably longer here. See the side-by-side →

A rough comparison of the two English renderings, which tokenize alike — not a word-level alignment.

Word counts can differ between the Hebrew and the Greek without any difference in meaning — e.g. the Hebrew direct-object marker אֵת has no separate Greek word, and Greek often adds the article ὁ.

In the original languages it is 8 Hebrew tokens and 13 Greek tokens — but the two are counted differently (Hebrew bundles its prefixes and suffixes into one token; the Greek is in lemma form), so that isn’t a like-for-like length.

Cross-references

Topical passages linked to Job 34:15 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

Genesis 3:19 By the sweat of your face will you eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken. For you are dust, and to dust you shall return."
Ecclesiastes 12:7 And the dust returns to the earth as it was, And the spirit returns to God who gave it.
Isaiah 57:16 For I will not contend forever, neither will I be always angry; for the spirit would faint before me, and the souls who I have made.
Job 9:22 "It is all the same. Therefore I say, He destroys the blameless and the wicked.
Job 10:9 Remember, I beg you, that you have fashioned me as clay. Will you bring me into dust again?
Job 30:23 For I know that you will bring me to death, To the house appointed for all living.
Psalms 90:3–10 You turn man to destruction, saying, "Return, you children of men."
Isaiah 27:4 Wrath is not in me: would that the briers and thorns were against me in battle! I would march on them, I would burn them together.

Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).

Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint

The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.

Here the Septuagint runs noticeably longer than the Hebrew — LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) 18 words vs World English Bible 12. A rough length comparison of the two English translations, not a word-level alignment — read both below.

These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.

Hebrew Job 34:15 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

יִגְוַ֣ע כָּל בָּשָׂ֣ר יָ֑חַד וְ֝אָדָ֗ם עַל עָפָ֥ר יָשֽׁוּב

All flesh would perish together, And man would turn again to dust.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Job 34:15 Septuagint · lemma form

τελευτάω πᾶς σάρξ ὁμοθυμαδόν πᾶς δέ βροτός εἰς γῆ ἀποἔρχομαι ὅθεν καί πλάσσω

all flesh would die together, and every mortal would return to the earth, whence also he was formed.

LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain

Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) (Public Domain). How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →

Commentary

Notes on Job 34:15 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.

Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →

Trapp's Complete Commentary

John Trapp

Job 34:15 All flesh shall perish together, and man shall turn again unto dust.

Ver. 15. All flesh shall perish together] i.e. All men, called here "All flesh," as, Mar 16:16, they are called every creature, a little world. If God command it to be so they shall all breathe out together.

And man shall turn to his dust again] The body to the dust, whence it was taken, but the spirit to God, who gave it. Ecc 12:7

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John Gill's Exposition

If now thou hast understanding, hear this,.... Not as calling his understanding in question, as if he, had none; for Job was a very understanding man; he had not lost his natural understanding by his afflictions, see Job 6:13; nor was he without an understanding of divine things, as his speeches and answers show; but rather it is taken for granted that he was a man of understanding: "if" or "seeing" thou hast understanding, art a man of knowledge and intelligence, therefore hearken and attend to what has been said or about to be said; though, as some Jewish interpreters (a) observe, the word is not a noun, but a verb, and is imperative, "understand thou now, hear this"; and then the sense is, "if" things are so as before related, Job 34:13; then now understand this, take it into thy heart and mind, and well weigh and consider it:

hearken to the voice of my words; either the preceding or following ones.

(a) Jarchi, Bar Tzemach, in loc. so Cocceius, Schmidt, and Schultens.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible

All flesh shall perish together - If God chose, he would have a right to cut down the whole race. How then shall people complain of the loss of health, comforts, and friends, and presume to arraign God as if he were unjust?

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations

All flesh, i.e. every man, who is called flesh, Gen 6:3,17; Isa 40:6.

Together, or, alike, without any exception, be they great or mean, wise or foolish, good or bad; if God design to destroy them, they cannot withstand his power, but must needs perish by his stroke. The design of this and the foregoing verse is the same with that of Job 34:13, See Poole "Job 34:13", namely, to declare God’s absolute and uncontrollable sovereignty over all men, to dispose of them either to life or to death, as it pleaseth him, and consequently to show that Job had cause to be thankful to God, who had continued his life so long to him, which he might have taken away as soon as ever he had given it, and had no cause to complain of him, or to tax him with injustice for afflicting him, as he did.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

The Pulpit Commentary

All flesh shall perish together. (comp. Psa_104:29) Without God"s sustaining hand, all creatures would fall back into nothingness. And man shall turn again unto dust, Either Elihu refers here to Gen_3:19, or else he has a traditional knowledge of man"s origin, handed down from a remote antiquity, which is in entire conformity with the Hebrew belief.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John Wesley's Explanatory Notes

All - The design of this and the foregoing verse is the same with that of ver. 13, namely, to declare God's absolute and uncontrollable sovereignty over all men.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

Lesson kit

Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.

Job, in the Wisdom, opens this verse with 8 words (8 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is gâvaʻ (“to die”). The Greek Septuagint runs longer here. A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

What does “to die” (gâvaʻ) contribute to the verse as a whole?
Genesis 6:17 shares the word «to die» with this verse. How do the two illuminate each other?
Compared with the Hebrew, the Septuagint runs longer here. What questions does that raise?
These translations render this verse differently. What is at stake in choosing one wording over another?
The verb «יִגְוַ֣ע» is Qal Imperfect. How does its form color the action?
Reading how Trapp's Complete Commentary and John Gill's Exposition read this verse, where do the two commentators agree and where do they part?

Things to notice

This verse counts 8 Hebrew ↔ 13 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 7 words in this verse.
8 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 8 words in this verse.