Bible Strands
Job 27:18
The house he built is like a moth’s cocoon, like a hut set up by a watchman.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Job addresses his companions to conclude his speech on the wicked man’s inevitable ruin, immediately after noting that the righteous will claim his hoarded wealth and before describing his sudden loss of fortune.
The words — בָּנָ֣ה (ba.Nah) means he has built, and נֹצֵֽר (no.Tzer) refers to a watchman, anchoring the verse’s comparison of human construction to temporary, vulnerable shelters.
The thread — This imagery of fragile habitation reappears in Job 8:14, Isaiah 1:8, and Isaiah 51:8, where woven or erected structures consistently symbolize transient human security.
Why it lands — The text demands that readers acknowledge the impermanence of self-made wealth and reject the assumption that material accumulation guarantees lasting stability.
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
He buildeth his house as a moth, and as a booth that the keeper maketh.
Cross-references
- Job 8:14 His confidence is fragile; his security is in a spider’s web.
- Isaiah 1:8 And the Daughter of Zion is abandoned like a shelter in a vineyard, like a shack in a cucumber field, like a city besieged.
- Isaiah 51:8 For the moth will devour them like a garment, and the worm will eat them like wool. But My righteousness will last forever, My salvation through all generations.”
- Isaiah 38:12 My dwelling has been picked up and removed from me like a shepherd’s tent. I have rolled up my life like a weaver; He cuts me off from the loom; from day until night You make an end of me.
- Lamentations 2:6 He has laid waste His tabernacle like a garden booth; He has destroyed His place of meeting. The LORD has made Zion forget her appointed feasts and Sabbaths. In His fierce anger He has despised both king and priest.