Bible Strands
Job 14:21
If his sons receive honor, he does not know it; if they are brought low, he is unaware.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Job addresses God while reflecting on the finality of human death and the limits of earthly influence. He speaks from within a poetic discourse on mortality, framing human existence as entirely subject to divine timing and power.
The words — יִכְבְּדוּ (yikh.be.Du) translates literally as "they are honored," and יָבִין (ya.Vin) means "he perceives." The verse pairs these terms to show that the deceased remains completely unresponsive to either his descendants' success or their disgrace.
The thread — The same boundary between life and posthumous ignorance runs in Ecclesiastes 9:5, which declares the dead know nothing, and Ecclesiastes 2:18, which records the futility of leaving one's labor to an unknown successor. Isaiah 63:16 reinforces the pattern by contrasting the living God with patriarchs who no longer perceive or acknowledge earthly affairs.
Why it lands — The text states plainly that death severs all awareness of family status or earthly events, removing any hope that legacy can comfort or alter the departed's condition. It requires the reader to accept mortality as a hard limit where human achievement and suffering lose their power to reach beyond the grave.
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
His sons come to honour, and he knoweth it not; and they are brought low, but he perceiveth it not of them.
Cross-references
- Ecclesiastes 9:5 For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing. They have no further reward, because the memory of them is forgotten.
- Ecclesiastes 2:18 I hated all for which I had toiled under the sun, because I must leave it to the man who comes after me.
- Isaiah 63:16 Yet You are our Father, though Abraham does not know us and Israel does not acknowledge us. You, O LORD, are our Father; our Redeemer from Everlasting is Your name.
- 1 Samuel 4:20 As she was dying, the women attending to her said, “Do not be afraid, for you have given birth to a son!” But she did not respond or pay any heed.
- Psalms 39:6 Surely every man goes about like a phantom; surely he bustles in vain; he heaps up riches not knowing who will haul them away.
- Isaiah 39:7 And some of your descendants, your own flesh and blood, will be taken away to be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.”