Job Chapter 14 verse 11 Holy Bible
`As' the waters fail from the sea, And the river wasteth and drieth up;
read chapter 14 in ASV
The waters go from a pool, and a river becomes waste and dry;
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The waters recede from the lake, and the river wasteth and drieth up:
read chapter 14 in DARBY
As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up:
read chapter 14 in KJV
As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up:
read chapter 14 in WBT
As the waters fail from the sea, And the river wastes and dries up,
read chapter 14 in WEB
Waters have gone away from a sea, And a river becometh waste and dry.
read chapter 14 in YLT
Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 11. - As the waters fail from the sea. The allusion seems to be to the actual desiccation of seas and rivers. Job, apparently, had known instances of both. A formation of new land in the place, of sea is always going on at the head of the Persian Gulf, through the deposits of the Tigris and Euphrates; and this formation was very rapid in ancient times, when the head of the gulf was narrower. The desiccation of river-courses is common in Mesopotamia, where arms thrown out by the Tigris and Euphrates get blocked, and then silted up. And the flood decayeth and drieth up; rather, and the river decayeth etc. (see the comment on the preceding clause).
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(11) As the waters fail from the sea seems commonly to have been misunderstood from its having been taken as a comparison; but there is no particle denoting comparison in the Hebrew. Moreover, the water never fails from the sea, nor do great rivers like the Nile or the Euphrates ever dry up. The comparison that is implied, but not expressed, is one of contrariety. The waters will have failed from the sea, and the rivers will have wasted and become dry, and yet the man who hath lain down (in death) will not arise: i.e., sooner than that shall happen, the sea will fail and the great rivers become dry. This appears to give a sense far better and more appropriate to the context. The Authorised Version obscures the obvious meaning of the passage by the introduction of the "as," which is not wanted. There is no hope of any future life, still less of any resurrection here; but neither can we regard the language as involving an absolute denial of it. What Job says is equally true even in full view of the life to come and of the resurrection; indeed, there seems to glimmer the hope of an ardent though unexpressed longing, through the very language that is used. At all events, the statement uttered so confidently is not proof against the inevitable doubt involved in Job 14:14.
