What Does Job 21:13 Mean in the King James?
They spend their days in wealth, and in a moment go down to the grave.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The verse calls prosperity the place where days reach completion: even a life full of good arrives at the grave in a moment.
THE MEANING
You can spend your days in well-being and still meet the grave suddenly. The verse holds prosperity and mortality together without making wealth proof of approval or protection. A comfortable life does not lengthen life’s boundary.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that visible prosperity proves divine approval or can shield anyone from death.
THE ROOT
יְכַלּוּ
yekhallū
GROWS FROM
כ-ל-ה
To complete, finish, or be consumed.
The verb behind “spend” means to complete or bring to an end. The days do not just pass in comfort; they reach their finish there, while the next phrase makes the descent to the grave sudden.
ALSO GROWS
killāyôn: Destruction, consumption, wasting away.
כִּלָּיוֹן
This related form gives the root’s sense of completion an edge of finality: prosperous days still reach an end.
kalah: To finish, complete, or come to an end.
כָּלָה
This is the root verb itself; it reveals that “spend their days” also carries the sense of bringing those days to completion.
בַּטּוֹב
ba-tov
GROWS FROM
ט-ו-ב
Good, pleasant, or beneficial; by extension, well-being and prosperity.
“wealth” in this verse is ba-tov. The Hebrew phrase is “in the good,” and tov can mean goodness or well-being as well as prosperity. It keeps a whole condition of well-being in view, beside life’s abrupt end.
ALSO GROWS
tovah: Goodness, benefit, or well-being.
טוֹבָה
This form shows the root reaching beyond material possessions to the good condition in which a person lives.
tuv: Goodness or good things; prosperity.
טוּב
This noun can name the good a person enjoys, reinforcing the breadth behind the verse’s “wealth.”
THE PATTERN
Prosperity can fill a life, yet neither wealth nor human plans can set the hour or cross death’s boundary.
Be not thou afraid when one is made rich, when the glory of his house is increased;For man also knoweth not his time: as the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare; so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falleth suddenly upon them.But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?THE THREAD
Like sheep they are laid in the grave; death shall feed on them; and the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning; and their beauty shall consume in the grave from their dwelling.The same Hebrew noun שְׁאוֹל (Sheol, the realm of the dead) is rendered “grave” in Job and twice in Psalm 49:14. Psalm 49 places that destination beside confidence in riches (vv. 6, 14), so the shared word exposes the same limit: abundance does not carry anyone beyond the grave.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us