Bible Strands
Job 14:18
But as a mountain erodes and crumbles and a rock is dislodged from its place,
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Job addresses God in a lament concerning human mortality, positioned immediately after wishing his transgression were sealed (14:17) and immediately before comparing God's destruction of human hope to water wearing down stone (14:19).
The words — The verse employs צוּר (Tzur, "rock") and יֶעְתַּק (ye'tak, "it moves/dislodged") to describe a stone being shifted from its fixed location. The paired verbs נוֹפֵל (nopele, "falling") and יִבּוֹל (yivbol, "crumbles away") depict progressive geological decay.
The thread — This motif of displaced mountains and rocks appears in Revelation 6:14, Job 18:4, and Jeremiah 4:24 to mark cosmic upheaval or divine intervention.
Why it lands — The text states that even the most stable natural formations eventually fail, requiring the reader to acknowledge that human hope remains fragile when measured against divine action.
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 surely the mountain falling cometh to nought, and the rock is removed out of his place.
Cross-references
- Revelation 6:14 The sky receded like a scroll being rolled up, and every mountain and island was moved from its place.
- Job 18:4 You who tear yourself in anger—should the earth be forsaken on your account, or the rocks be moved from their place?
- Jeremiah 4:24 I looked at the mountains, and behold, they were quaking; all the hills were swaying.
- Psalms 102:25 In the beginning You laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Your hands.
- Isaiah 40:12 Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, or marked off the heavens with the span of his hand? Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket, or weighed the mountains on a scale and the hills with a balance?
- Isaiah 41:15 Behold, I will make you into a threshing sledge, new and sharp, with many teeth. You will thresh the mountains and crush them, and reduce the hills to chaff.
- Isaiah 54:10 Though the mountains may be removed and the hills may be shaken, My loving devotion will not depart from you, and My covenant of peace will not be broken,” says the LORD, who has compassion on you.
- Isaiah 64:1 If only You would rend the heavens and come down, so that mountains would quake at Your presence,
- Matthew 27:51 At that moment the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth quaked, and the rocks were split.
- Revelation 8:8 Then the second angel sounded his trumpet, and something like a great mountain burning with fire was thrown into the sea. A third of the sea turned to blood,