Bible Strands
Job 7:1
“Is not man consigned to labor on earth? Are not his days like those of a hired hand?
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Job speaks these words in the midst of his suffering, addressing his friends while describing his own exhausted condition. The words — The Hebrew terms צָבָא (tsava) for “service” or “conscription” and שָׂכִיר (sakhir) for “hired hand” frame human existence as compulsory labor with no guaranteed reward. The thread — The motif of limited, predetermined days appears in Job 14:5 and Psalm 39:4, where God sets fixed boundaries for human lifespan. Why it lands — The text asks readers to confront the inescapable reality of human toil and the brevity of life without assuming immediate divine comfort.
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
Is there not an appointed time to man upon earth? are not his days also like the days of an hireling?
Cross-references
- 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,
- Psalms 39:4 “Show me, O LORD, my end and the measure of my days. Let me know how fleeting my life is.
- Job 5:7 Yet man is born to trouble as surely as sparks fly upward.
- Job 14:13 If only You would hide me in Sheol and conceal me until Your anger has passed! If only You would appoint a time for me and then remember me!
- Leviticus 25:50 He and his purchaser will then count the time from the year he sold himself up to the Year of Jubilee. The price of his sale will be determined by the number of years, based on the daily wages of a hired hand.
- Deuteronomy 15:18 Do not regard it as a hardship to set your servant free, because his six years of service were worth twice the wages of a hired hand. And the LORD your God will bless you in all you do.
- Ecclesiastes 8:8 As no man has power over the wind to contain it, so no one has authority over his day of death. As no one can be discharged in wartime, so wickedness will not release those who practice it.
- Isaiah 40:2 “Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her forced labor has been completed; her iniquity has been pardoned. For she has received from the hand of the LORD double for all her sins.”
- Matthew 20:1 “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard.
- John 11:9 Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? If anyone walks in the daytime, he will not stumble, because he sees by the light of this world.