Bible Strands
Job 1:21
saying: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away. Blessed be the name of the LORD.”
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Job speaks in the immediate aftermath of losing all his children and possessions (1:13–19), right after tearing his robe, shaving his head, and falling to worship (1:20). No audience is named; the words are directed toward God.
The words — עָרֹם (ʿārôm, "naked") appears twice, bookending the statement and making the body's exposure the frame for the whole confession. The verb אָשׁוּב (ʾāšûḇ, "I will return") carries the sense of turning back along the same path one came.
The thread — Ecclesiastes 5:15 restates the same naked-in/naked-out formula as a general truth about human labor; 1 Timothy 6:7 draws the practical conclusion that we can carry nothing out.
Why it lands — It asks the reader to hold grief and worship in the same breath without resolving the tension: Job does not explain, defend, or minimize the loss, and the text does not require the reader to feel gratitude for it either.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
And said, Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.
Cross-references
- Ecclesiastes 5:15 As a man came from his mother’s womb, so he will depart again, naked as he arrived. He takes nothing for his labor to carry in his hands.
- 1 Timothy 6:7 For we brought nothing into the world, so we cannot carry anything out of it.
- 1 Thessalonians 5:18 Give thanks in every circumstance, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
- James 1:17 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, with whom there is no change or shifting shadow.
- Job 2:10 “You speak as a foolish woman speaks,” he told her. “Should we accept from God only good and not adversity?” In all this, Job did not sin in what he said.
- Psalms 49:17 For when he dies, he will carry nothing away; his abundance will not follow him down.
- Ecclesiastes 12:7 before the dust returns to the ground from which it came and the spirit returns to God who gave it.
- Ephesians 5:20 always giving thanks to God the Father for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
- Genesis 3:19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat your bread, until you return to the ground—because out of it were you taken. For dust you are, and to dust you shall return.”
- 1 Samuel 2:7 The LORD sends poverty and wealth; He humbles and He exalts.