Bible Strands
Job 14:11
As water disappears from the sea and a river becomes parched and dry,
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Job addresses his dialogue partners while reflecting on human mortality immediately after describing a man's death in the preceding verse.
The words — The Hebrew verbs אָֽזְלוּ ('azelu) and יֶחֱרַב (yecherav) literally mean they disappear and it dries up. They describe the physical departure of waters from the sea and the parching of a river.
The thread — The drying imagery appears in Isaiah 19:5, which notes a riverbed parching, and Jeremiah 15:18, where water functions as a metaphor for unreliable comfort.
Why it lands — The text grounds Job’s meditation on death in the observable, complete vanishing of a water source. It asks the reader to acknowledge that human life, once ended, lacks natural restoration.
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
As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up:
Cross-references
- Isaiah 19:5 The waters of the Nile will dry up, and the riverbed will be parched and empty.
- Job 6:15 But my brothers are as faithless as wadis, as seasonal streams that overflow,
- Jeremiah 15:18 Why is my pain unending, and my wound incurable, refusing to be healed? You have indeed become like a mirage to me—water that is not there.