Bible Strands
Job 14:9
at the scent of water it will bud and put forth twigs like a sapling.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Job speaks in a reflective monologue contrasting the regenerative capacity of felled trees with the finality of human death. He addresses his own condition and the arguments of his friends during his prolonged suffering.
The words — מֵ/רֵ֣יחַ (me./Rei.ach) = from/ the scent of and יַפְרִ֑חַ (yaf.Ri.ach) = it will show buds describe the precise physiological trigger that causes a dead stump to regenerate.
The thread — The text’s botanical imagery of shoots and plants appears in Romans 11:17 and Ezekiel 17:3 and Ezekiel 17:22.
Why it lands — The text states that water restores life to a stump, while the surrounding verses state that human death leaves no such natural mechanism for revival. It asks the reader to confront the absolute finality of human mortality without borrowing botanical hope.
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
Yet through the scent of water it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a plant.
Cross-references
- Romans 11:17 Now if some branches have been broken off, and you, a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others to share in the nourishment of the olive root,
- Ezekiel 17:3 and tell them that this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘A great eagle with great wings and long pinions, full of feathers of many colors, came to Lebanon and took away the top of the cedar.
- Ezekiel 17:22 This is what the Lord GOD says: ‘I will take a shoot from the lofty top of the cedar, and I will set it out. I will pluck a tender sprig from its topmost shoots, and I will plant it on a high and lofty mountain.
- Ezekiel 19:10 Your mother was like a vine in your vineyard, planted by the water; it was fruitful and full of branches because of the abundant waters.