Job 4:20
From morning till evening they shall be cut down: and because no one understandeth, they shall perish for ever.
Open Job 4:20 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- De mane usque ad vesperam succidentur ; et quia nullus intelligit, in æternum peribunt.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- καὶ ἀπὸ πρωίθεν μέχρι ἑσπέρας οὐκέτι εἰσίν, παρὰ τὸ μὴ δύνασθαι αὐτοὺς ἑαυτοῖς βοηθῆσαι ἀπώλοντο.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- מִבֹּ֣קֶר לָעֶ֣רֶב יֻכַּ֑תּוּ מִבְּלִ֥י מֵ֝שִׂ֗ים לָנֶ֥צַח יֹאבֵֽדוּ
Haydock's commentary
Understandeth. Hebrew, "regardeth." Septuagint, "can help himself." (Haydock)
Man is justly punished because he does not reflect on what he ought. (Calmet)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Clement of Rome First Epistle to the Corinthians, Chapter XXXIX. There is no reason
Foolish and inconsiderate men, who have neither wisdom nor instruction, mock and deride us, being eager to exalt themselves in their own conceits. For what can a mortal man do? or what strength is there in one made out of the dust? For it is written, “There was no shape before mine eyes, only I heard a sound, and a voice [saying], What then? Shall a man be pure before the Lord? or shall such an one be [counted] blameless in his deeds, seeing He does not confide in His servants, and has charged even His angels with perversity? The heaven is not clean in His sight: how much less they that dwell in houses of clay, of which also we ourselves were made! He smote them as a moth; and from morning even until evening they endure not. Because they could furnish no assistance to themselves, they perished. He breathed upon them, and they died, because they had no wisdom. …
St Clement of Rome The First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, Chapter XXXIX
Foolish and inconsiderate men, who have neither wisdom nor instruction, mock and deride us, being eager to exalt themselves in their own conceits. For what can a mortal man do, or what strength is there in one made out of the dust? For it is written, “There was no shape before mine eyes, only I heard a sound, and a voice [saying], What then? Shall a man be pure before the Lord? Or shall such an one be [counted] blameless in his deeds, seeing He does not confide in His servants, and has charged even His angels with perversity? The heaven is not clean in His sight: how much less they that dwell in houses of clay, of which also we ourselves were made! He smote them as a moth; and from morning even until evening they endure not. Because they could furnish no assistance to themselves, they perished. He breathed upon them, and they died, because they had no wisdom. …
St Jerome Against the Pelagians, Book II
Job iv. 17-21 . Shall mortal man be just with God?