Bible Strands
Job 33:21
His flesh wastes away from sight, and his hidden bones protrude.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Elihu addresses Job during his prolonged suffering, describing the physical toll of divine discipline between Job's rejection of food (Job 33:20) and his approach to death (Job 33:22).
The words — יִכֵּל (Yi.khel) means "it wastes away" and בְּשָׂרוֹ (be.sa.R/o) means "his flesh," but the phrase מֵרֹאִי (me./Ro.'i) specifies this wasting occurs "from sight," indicating the body disappears from view rather than remaining visible.
The thread — This pattern of physical decay appears in Job 19:20 where skin and flesh cling to bones, Job 7:5 where flesh is clothed with worms, and Job 13:28 where man wastes away like a rotten garment.
Why it lands — The verse demands recognition of total bodily collapse as a precursor to mortality, stripping away physical vitality before life reaches the messengers of death.
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
His flesh is consumed away, that it cannot be seen; and his bones that were not seen stick out.
Cross-references
- Job 19:20 My skin and flesh cling to my bones; I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.
- Job 7:5 My flesh is clothed with worms and encrusted with dirt; my skin is cracked and festering.
- Job 13:28 So man wastes away like something rotten, like a moth-eaten garment.
- Proverbs 5:11 At the end of your life you will groan when your flesh and your body are spent,
- Job 14:20 You forever overpower him, and he passes on; You change his countenance and send him away.
- Job 14:22 He feels only the pain of his own body and mourns only for himself.”
- Job 16:8 You have bound me, and it has become a witness; my frailty rises up and testifies against me.
- Psalms 22:15 My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. You lay me in the dust of death.
- Psalms 32:3 When I kept silent, my bones became brittle from my groaning all day long.
- Psalms 39:11 You discipline and correct a man for his iniquity, consuming like a moth what he holds dear; surely each man is but a vapor. Selah