Bible Strands
Job 27:14
Though his sons are many, they are destined for the sword; and his offspring will never have enough food.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Job speaks in his closing address to his companions, delineating the fixed inheritance God assigns to the ruthless. The passage functions as a direct counterpoint to his earlier claims of personal integrity and divine favor.
The words — חָ֑רֶב (cha.rev) = sword, and יִשְׂבְּעוּ (yis.be.u) = they will be satisfied. The Hebrew syntax pairs the inevitability of martial death with the permanent denial of sustenance for the wicked man’s lineage.
The thread — The motif of displaced offspring appears alongside Deuteronomy 28:41, Job 20:10, and Luke 23:29. Deuteronomy 28:41 describes children taken into captivity, Job 20:10 notes sons seeking the poor after wealth vanishes, and Luke 23:29 announces a future blessing for women who never bore children.
Why it lands — The text demands the reader acknowledge that numerical increase and material accumulation hold no protective value against divine judgment. It forces a direct comparison between human expansion and the certainty of its reversal when divorced from righteousness.
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
If his children be multiplied, it is for the sword: and his offspring shall not be satisfied with bread.
Cross-references
- Deuteronomy 28:41 You will father sons and daughters, but they will not remain yours, because they will go into captivity.
- Job 20:10 His sons will seek the favor of the poor, for his own hands must return his wealth.
- Luke 23:29 Look, the days are coming when people will say, ‘Blessed are the barren women, the wombs that never bore, and breasts that never nursed!’
- Deuteronomy 28:32 Your sons and daughters will be given to another nation, while your eyes grow weary looking for them day after day, with no power in your hand.
- 1 Samuel 2:5 The well-fed hire themselves out for food, but the starving hunger no more. The barren woman gives birth to seven, but she who has many sons pines away.
- 2 Kings 9:7 And you are to strike down the house of your master Ahab, so that I may avenge the blood of My servants the prophets and the blood of all the servants of the LORD shed by the hand of Jezebel.
- 2 Kings 10:6 Then Jehu wrote them a second letter and said: “If you are on my side, and if you will obey me, then bring the heads of your master’s sons to me at Jezreel by this time tomorrow.” Now the sons of the king, seventy in all, were being brought up by the leading men of the city.
- Esther 5:11 Haman recounted to them his glorious wealth, his many sons, and all the ways the king had honored and promoted him over the other officials and servants.
- Esther 9:5 The Jews put all their enemies to the sword, killing and destroying them, and they did as they pleased to those who hated them.
- Job 15:22 He despairs of his return from darkness; he is marked for the sword.