The Meaning of Job 13:12 Explained

Job 13:12

KJV: Your remembrances are like unto ashes, your bodies to bodies of clay.

YLT: Your remembrances are similes of ashes, For high places of clay your heights.

Darby: Your memorable sayings are proverbs of ashes, your bulwarks are bulwarks of mire.

ASV: Your memorable sayings are proverbs of ashes, Your defences are defences of clay.

KJV Reverse Interlinear

Your remembrances  [are] like  unto ashes,  your bodies  to bodies  of clay. 

What does Job 13:12 Mean?

Context Summary

Job 13:1-28 - "though He Slay Me"
The sufferer first rebukes his friends, Job 13:4-12. Then he makes an appeal to God, affirming that he was no hypocrite, and asking that his sins, for which he was suffering, might be set down, Job 13:23.
When Job said that he knew himself to be righteous, he was clearly speaking of known sin; he knew, so far as a man may know himself, that he had not committed the sins of which his friends charged him. He could bare his life to the inspection of men and angels, being sure that no accusation of which human law-courts would take cognizance could be established against him. But this is a very different matter with the divine tribunal. When a fuller light had shone upon him from the face of God, when the patriarch had seen Him instead of merely hearing of Him by the ear, then he would "abhor himself and repent in dust and ashes," Job 42:5-6.
Job 13:15 is almost the greatest sentence ever uttered by mortal lips! Let us ask for grace to affirm it. [source]

Chapter Summary: Job 13

1  Job reproves his friends for partiality
14  He professes his confidence in God;
19  and entreats to know his own sins, and God's purpose in afflicting him

What do the individual words in Job 13:12 mean?

Your platitudes [are] proverbs of ashes defenses of clay Your defenses are
זִֽ֭כְרֹנֵיכֶם מִשְׁלֵי־ אֵ֑פֶר לְגַבֵּי־ חֹ֝֗מֶר גַּבֵּיכֶֽם

זִֽ֭כְרֹנֵיכֶם  Your  platitudes  [are] 
Parse: Noun, masculine plural construct, second person masculine plural
Root: זִכָּרֹון  
Sense: memorial, reminder, remembrance.
מִשְׁלֵי־  proverbs 
Parse: Noun, masculine plural construct
Root: מָשַׁל 
Sense: to represent, liken, be like.
אֵ֑פֶר  of  ashes 
Parse: Noun, masculine singular
Root: אֵפֶר  
Sense: ashes.
לְגַבֵּי־  defenses 
Parse: Preposition-l, Noun, masculine plural construct
Root: גַּב 
Sense: convex surface, back.
חֹ֝֗מֶר  of  clay 
Parse: Noun, masculine singular
Root: חֹמֶר 
Sense: cement, mortar, clay.
גַּבֵּיכֶֽם  Your  defenses  are 
Parse: Noun, masculine plural construct, second person masculine plural
Root: גַּב 
Sense: convex surface, back.