Bible Strands
Job 17:16
Will it go down to the gates of Sheol? Will we go down together into the dust?”
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Job speaks to himself in the wake of his despair, immediately following his declaration that no one can see his hope. He questions whether his hope will descend to the grave or remain apart from his own fate.
The words — שְׁאֹל (Sheol) and עָפָר (dust) define the destination of the descent. The verbs תֵּרַדְנָה (will they go down?) and נָחַת (will we descend) structure the verse as a rhetorical inquiry about shared mortality.
The thread — The imagery of descending to the grave appears in Job 3:17, where the weary find rest, and Jonah 2:6, where the prophet describes being barred in by the earth. Job 18:13 similarly uses descent and death imagery to depict destruction.
Why it lands — The text states plainly that both hope and the speaker face the same descent into dust. It requires the reader to accept the finality of this physical fate before considering any other outcome.
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
They shall go down to the bars of the pit, when our rest together is in the dust.
Cross-references
- Job 3:17 There the wicked cease from raging, and there the weary find rest.
- Jonah 2:6 To the roots of the mountains I descended; the earth beneath me barred me in forever! But You raised my life from the pit, O LORD my God!
- Job 18:13 It devours patches of his skin; the firstborn of death devours his limbs.
- Job 33:18 to preserve his soul from the Pit and his life from perishing by the sword.
- Psalms 88:4 I am counted among those descending to the Pit. I am like a man without strength.
- Psalms 143:7 Answer me quickly, O LORD; my spirit fails. Do not hide Your face from me, or I will be like those who descend to the Pit.
- Isaiah 38:17 Surely for my own welfare I had such great anguish; but Your love has delivered me from the pit of oblivion, for You have cast all my sins behind Your back.
- Ezekiel 37:11 Then He said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Look, they are saying, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope has perished; we are cut off.’
- 2 Corinthians 1:9 Indeed, we felt we were under the sentence of death, in order that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God, who raises the dead.