What Does Job 14:19 Mean?
The waters grind the stones, and in their flood you sweep away the dust of the earth, and you make the cord of man perish.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
The waters wear the stones: thou washest away the things which grow out of the dust of the earth; and thou destroyest the hope of man.THE KEY
The waters wear down stone while the Hebrew word for hope can also mean a cord: even the line stretched toward a future can be broken.
THE MEANING
You live in a world where persistent water wears stone and what grows from the soil can be washed away. The verse places human hope in that same chain of loss: God washes away what springs from the earth and destroys a person’s expectation. The Hebrew word for hope can also name a cord, so the loss reaches the line held toward a future.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that hope is sheltered from the same forces that wear down the rest of life.
THE ROOT
תִּקְוַת
tiqvat
GROWS FROM
קוה
To wait for or expect; related forms also carry the senses of cord or line and gathering.
תִּקְוָה (tiqvah) can mean both hope and a cord, while מִקְוֶה (miqveh) names a gathering or pool of water. The shared consonants קוה let the opening waters echo inside the verse’s word for hope: expectation is a line held toward what comes next, and that line can be lost.
ALSO GROWS
tiqvah: Hope, expectation; also a cord or line.
תִּקְוָה
The hope destroyed in the verse can be heard as a cord of expectation stretched toward a future.
miqveh: A gathering or collection, including a pool of water.
מִקְוֶה
Its shared consonants echo the waters that begin the verse, joining the image of water with the word for hope.
תְּאַבֵּד
te'abbed
GROWS FROM
אבד
To perish or be lost; in this form, to cause something to perish.
“make perish” in this verse is te'abbed. The root holds perishing and being lost together, so this is not only damage to hope: the hope itself is made to perish. The verse’s final loss is total, after water has worn stone and washed away growth.
ALSO GROWS
oved: Perishing; one who is lost or perishing.
אֹבֵד
It shows the root describing a state of loss, alongside the verse’s form that causes loss.
avaddon: Destruction or a place of destruction.
אֲבַדּוֹן
This noun gives the root’s movement toward perishing a concrete name.
שָׁחֲקוּ
shachaqu
GROWS FROM
שחק
To rub, grind down, or wear away.
“grind” in this verse is shachaqu. The word describes gradual abrasion: water acts through continual contact until stone yields. That slow wearing shapes the verse’s sequence of losses, from stone and soil-grown things to human hope.
ALSO GROWS
shechiqah: Wearing, grinding, or abrasion.
שְׁחִיקָה
It names the gradual process by which the waters reduce the stones.
shachuq: Worn down or ground.
שָׁחוּק
It describes the condition left by the persistent force pictured in the verse.
THE PATTERN
What appears solid or flourishing remains exposed to forces that make it wither, wear out, and perish.
They perish, but you stand. All of them wear thin like a garment; as a robe you exchange them, and they are exchanged.The grass dries, the flower withers, because the breath of the LORD blows upon it; surely the people is grass.They will perish, but you remain; and they will all wear out like a garment.THE THREAD
So are the paths of all who forget God, and the cord of the soiled one perishes.This verse uses the same word for hope, תִּקְוָה (tiqvah), and the same root אבד (avad, perish or be lost) as Job 14:19. There, hope perishes; here, God is named as the one who destroys it, while water, stone, and washed earth make the loss visible.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
You can read any verse this way in the app, keep it as a card, and send it on.
A Bible app where you send verses from your keyboard and in Messages, and every verse has a Deep Dive.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us