Bible Strands
Job 16:22
For when only a few years are past I will go the way of no return.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Job speaks to his friends immediately after wishing he could plead his case before God as he would before a human neighbor. He marks this moment as the final stretch of his remaining life before death.
The words — The phrase אֹרַח לֹא אָשׁוּב ('O.rach lo' 'a.Shuv) literally renders "a way [in which] I will not return." This anchors the verse's declaration of irreversible death.
The thread — This theme of irreversible departure appears in Job 7:9, where the one who goes down to Sheol does not return, and Job 14:5, where God has fixed the number of a person's months. Job 14:10 also records that when a man dies, his place becomes unknown.
Why it lands — The text states that remaining time is brief and death is a one-way journey, requiring the reader to acknowledge human mortality without assuming post-death return. It demands a sober reckoning with finite days before any appeal to God.
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
When a few years are come, then I shall go the way whence I shall not return.
Cross-references
- Job 14:10 But a man dies and is laid low; he breathes his last, and where is he?
- Job 7:9 As a cloud vanishes and is gone, so he who goes down to Sheol does not come back up.
- Job 14:5 Since his days are determined and the number of his months is with You, and since You have set limits that he cannot exceed,
- Job 14:14 When a man dies, will he live again? All the days of my hard service I will wait, until my renewal comes.
- Ecclesiastes 12:5 when men fear the heights and dangers of the road, when the almond tree blossoms, the grasshopper loses its spring, and the caper berry shrivels—for then man goes to his eternal home and mourners walk the streets.