Job 24:20 · Bible study
Job 24:20 Commentary: Womb, Worm, and the Wicked's End
Hebrew · 10 what the commentators say
Meaning in one sentence
Exegetical analysis of Job 24:20: does the womb forgetting and worm feeding sweetly describe a peaceful death or divine judgment?
Research Summary
- Meaning: The wicked die, are forgotten and decay, but the verse leaves open whether this is peaceful or judgmental.
- Key words: rechem (womb/mercy), rimmah (worm/maggot), yizaker (Niphal: he is remembered), each carries ambiguity.
- Main debate: Does the verse describe natural death (Barnes) or divine curse (Gill), and is Job speaking or quoting his friends?
- Theological theme: The apparent silence of God in the face of evil, and the finality of death as a levelling force.
- Best use: A candid pastoral resource for those wrestling with unanswered questions about justice and mortality.
Translation Comparison
BSB Berean Standard Bible 2020
The womb forgets them; the worm feeds on them; they are remembered no more. So injustice is like a broken tree.
WEB World English Bible 2000
The womb will forget him. The worm will feed sweetly on him. He will be no more remembered. Unrighteousness will be broken as a tree.
KJV King James Version 1769
The womb shall forget him; the worm shall feed sweetly on him; he shall be no more remembered; and wickedness shall be broken as a tree.
ASV American Standard Version 1901
The womb shall forget him; The worm shall feed sweetly on him; He shall be no more remembered; And unrighteousness shall be broken as a tree.
YLT Young's Literal Translation 1898
Forget him doth the womb, Sweeten on him doth the worm, No more is he remembered, And broken as a tree is wickedness.
Darby Darby Bible 1890
The womb forgetteth him; the worm feedeth sweetly on him: he shall be no more remembered; and unrighteousness is broken as a tree, —
Douay-Rheims Douay-Rheims Bible 1899
Let mercy forget him: may worms be his sweetness: let him be remembered no more, but be broken in pieces as an unfruitful tree.
Translations in other languages (10 available)
Olvidaráse de ellos el seno materno; de ellos sentirán los gusanos dulzura; nunca más habrá de ellos memoria, y como un árbol serán los impíos quebrantados.
A mãe se esquecerá dele; doce será para os vermes; nunca mais haverá memória dele ,e a perversidade será quebrada como um árvore.
Quoi! Le sein maternel l’ oublie,
Der Mutterschoß vergißt sein; die Würmer haben ihre Lust an ihm. Sein wird nicht mehr gedacht; er wird zerbrochen wie ein fauler Baum,
De baarmoeder vergeet hem, het gewormte is hem zoet, zijns wordt niet meer gedacht; en het onrecht wordt gebroken als een hout.
Il seno che lo portò l’oblia; i vermi ne fanno il loro pasto delizioso, nessuno più lo ricorda.
Zapomina go żywot matki jego, a robak słodkość z niego czuje; niemasz więcej pamiątki jego, a nieprawość połamana jest jako drzewo.
Пусть забудет его утроба матери; пусть лакомится им червь; пусть не остается о нем память; как дерево, пусть сломится беззаконник,
懷他的母（原文是胎）要忘記他；蟲子要吃他，覺得甘甜；他不 再 被人記念。不義的人 必如樹 折斷。
The public place of his town has no more knowledge of him, and his name has gone from the memory of men: he is rooted up like a dead tree.
Verse in Context
Original Language (Biblical Hebrew)
Old Testament · Biblical Hebrew · Job 24:20
Source: STEPBible TAGNT/TEHB (CC-BY 4.0). Click or tap a morphology code to see the full parsing.
Scholars' Consensus
Commentators broadly agree that Job 24:20 depicts the final condition of the wicked: they die, are buried, and are forgotten. The verse piles up images of obliteration, the womb forgets, worms feast, memory vanishes, wickedness is shattered like a tree. But a sharp disagreement runs beneath this agreement. Barnes, following Mercer, argues the verse describes a calm, ordinary death: the wicked are not struck down by public punishment but die quietly at home, so that even a mother does not remember them with shame. For Barnes this is Job’s own observation that the wicked often escape spectacular judgment. Gill, by contrast, reads the verse as a verdict of condemnation: the womb (or mercy) forgets them in the sense that God shows them no favour, and the worm feeding sweetly is the curse of a corpse left to rot. The Hebrew word rechem can mean either 'womb' or 'mercy,' and that ambiguity drives the difference. Clarke takes a similar line, calling the forgetting of mercy 'dreadful.' The Cambridge Bible suggests the verse may be an ironic quotation of the friends’ creed rather than Job’s own view. All agree the verse insists the wicked come to nothing, but whether that nothing is a peaceful end or a sign of judgment remains contested.
How settled is the interpretation?
Interpretive difficulty: Medium
Main views:
- Peaceful death view: Barnes, Mercer, Rosenmuller: the wicked die quietly like others; the womb forgetting means no shameful memory, and the worm sweetly indicates a painless death.
- Divine judgment view: Clarke, Gill: the womb is mercy that forgets them, the worm feeds as a curse, and the broken tree is violent destruction.
- Ironic citation view: Cambridge Bible: Job is quoting the friends' creed (the wicked are swiftly judged) to contrast with his own observation of their prosperity.
What is clear: All readers agree the verse depicts the wicked’s final condition as death, decay and being forgotten, regardless of whether that end is interpreted as peaceful or punitive.
What Scholars Agree and Debate
| Topic | Agreed | Debated |
|---|---|---|
| Meaning of 'womb' | The word <em>rechem</em> denotes the source of life or compassion. | Some read it as the literal mother (Barnes, Mercer); others as 'mercy' (Clarke, Gill, Vulgate), referring to God's compassion that withdraws from the wicked. |
| Nature of the wicked's death | The wicked die and are buried, entering oblivion. | Barnes, Rosenmuller, and Noyes see a quiet, natural death; Gill and Clarke see a cursed death where even mercy abandons them. Cambridge Bible suggests Job may be quoting the friends' creed ironically. |
| Broken as a tree | Finality: the wicked's end is like a tree shattered or felled. | Some read it as a violent breaking (Gill: thunderbolt); others as a gradual decay (Barnes: dry tree falling by its own weight). The Hebrew verb <em>shavar</em> can mean either 'shatter' or 'break'. |
| The worm feeding sweetly | The grave consumes the body. | Barnes: the death is painless, 'sweet' to the dead; Gill: the corpse is a sweet morsel for worms, a sign of humiliation. The ambiguity of <em>metaq</em> (to be sweet, to suck) allows both. |
Historical & Cultural Context
Job 24 comes in the middle of Job’s third cycle of speeches, a section where Job directly challenges the retribution theology of his friends. Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar have argued that suffering is always punishment for sin. Job rejects this: he points to the wicked who prosper and die peacefully, while he, a righteous man, suffers unbearably. In chapter 23 Job longs for a court hearing with God; in chapter 24 he piles up examples of injustice that seem to go unpunished.
The literary structure of 24:18, 24 is debated. Several scholars, including those behind the Cambridge Bible, detect two voices: verses 18, 21 echo the friends’ view that the wicked are swept away like foam, while verses 22, 24 give Job’s own observation that they are exalted for a while before dying a common death. Verse 20 sits at the hinge of this shift.
The Hebrew of the verse uses a series of verbs in the perfect or prophetic perfect: yishkahehu ('it forgets him'), metaqo ('it sucks on him'), yizaker ('he is remembered', Niphal passive), vatishaver ('it was broken'). The Niphal form of zakhar (to remember) is crucial: the wicked do not simply fail to be remembered; they are actively erased from memory. The word rechem (womb/mercy) opens a lexical door: in the context of a mother’s compassion, but also recalling God’s compassionate nature. The tree imagery (ets) echoes Job’s earlier meditation in Job 14:7, 10, where a felled tree may sprout again but a man does not. Here the breaking of wickedness as a tree is final, no regrowth.
Cross-references reinforce the topos of the wicked’s forgotten name: Job 18:17 ('His memory will perish from the earth'), Proverbs 10:7 ('the name of the wicked will rot'), Ecclesiastes 8:10 ('they went and were forgotten in the city'). The worm (rimmah) appears in Job 17:14 as a grim relative, and the sweet feeding recalls Job 21:33 where the clods of the valley are sweet to the dead. The verse therefore participates in a sustained poetic exploration of death’s anonymity.
Textual Notes
The consulted sources note no significant variant readings for Job 24:20. The Hebrew text is stable across manuscripts. The chief interpretive difficulty is lexical (the range of rechem) rather than textual.
Reception History
Early Jewish interpretation (Targum, Rashi) took the womb as the mother, emphasising the wicked person’s complete erasure from family memory. The Septuagint and Vulgate rendered rechem as ‘mercy’ (‘may mercy forget him’), a reading that shaped much Latin tradition and entered the Douay-Rheims translation. Medieval Christian commentators like Gregory the Great moralised the worm as the gnawing of conscience after death. Reformation-era interpreters split: Calvin saw the verse as proof that God’s judgment is not always visible, while Luther emphasised the terror of being forgotten by God. In the modern period, the Cambridge Bible’s suggestion that Job is ironically citing the friends’ creed has gained traction in critical scholarship. The verse is rarely cited in liturgy or hymnody due to its starkness, but it appears in theological discussions of theodicy and the fate of the wicked.
Preaching This Verse
Three-point outline
- The womb forgets. Whether this is a mother losing memory of her child or mercy itself turning away, the first line announces erasure. The wicked are disconnected from the source of life and love.
- The worm feeds sweetly. Death reduces everyone to the same meal. The grave levels the powerful and the powerless. The sweetness is either a peaceful end (no agony on the deathbed) or the grotesque satisfaction of decay.
- Wickedness broken as a tree. A tree can be snapped by storm, by age, by an axe. The image is final. Evil does not last forever, even if its end is ordinary rather than spectacular.
Five-point outline
- The certainty of death: everyone dies, wicked and righteous alike.
- The silence of memory: being forgotten is part of the human condition.
- The ambiguity of the ‘womb’: the Hebrew allows both a human mother’s forgetfulness and divine mercy’s withdrawal. Both readings carry weight.
- The worm’s feast: a gruesome reminder of human frailty, but also a possible note of peace, no prolonged suffering.
- The broken tree: wickedness is shattered; it does not survive death. God’s justice may be veiled but it is not absent.
Illustration hooks
- Funeral of a notorious figure. When a widely known criminal or tyrant dies, the world may move on quickly. The news cycle forgets within a week. Job’s verse captures that same erasure.
- An old tree in a backyard. It stands for decades, then one winter it cracks and falls. Neighbors remember it for a season, then the stump is ground down and grass grows. Evil’s end is like that.
- A nursing mother’s instinct. The strongest human bond is that between a mother and her infant. If even that bond can be broken, by death, by time, by distance, then no human connection is permanent.
Questions your congregation is asking
- Does God always punish evil in this life? The verse seems to say the wicked die like everyone else. Why doesn’t God act sooner?
- Is death the ultimate judgment, or is there more beyond the grave? Job speaks of Sheol but also of seeing God (Job 19:26). How do these fit together?
- If I am forgotten after I die, does my life matter? How does Christian hope in the resurrection answer Job’s bleak vision?
Leading a Discussion
This small-group guide invites your group into Job’s raw honesty. He is not giving a final answer about the fate of the wicked; he is wrestling with what he sees. The verse forces us to sit with the silence of the grave and the mystery of God’s justice. Read Job 24:18, 24 aloud together before starting.
Discussion questions
- What feelings does the verse stir in you? The images are deliberately harsh, why do you think Job uses them?
- The Hebrew word rechem can mean ‘womb’ or ‘mercy.’ How does the meaning change when you read it as ‘the womb forgets him’ versus ‘mercy forgets him’? Which reading seems more likely in context?
- Compare this verse with Job 14:7, 10 (the tree that may sprout again) and Job 18:16, 17 (the wicked’s roots dried up). Does Job see any hope for the wicked beyond death, or only extinction?
- Some commentators (like Barnes) say this describes a peaceful death; others (like Gill) see judgment. Which view do you find more persuasive, and why?
- How does the New Testament’s teaching on resurrection and final judgment (e.g., Revelation 20:11, 15) change the way Christians read this Old Testament passage? Does it resolve the tension, or does it reframe it?
- Job’s friends would likely say the wicked are swiftly punished. Job says they often die quietly. How does this mismatch between belief and experience challenge your own understanding of God’s justice?
- If someone came to you saying, ‘I’m afraid my life will be forgotten after I die,’ how would you respond from the whole sweep of Scripture?
Word Study
The key original-language words in this verse. Select any word for its full lexicon entry — meaning, every occurrence in Scripture, and related words.
Cross-References
Source: Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (TSK, public domain)
| Job 14:7 | “For there is hope for a tree if it is cut down, that it will sprout again, that the tender branch of it will not cease. |
| Job 14:10 | But man dies, and is laid low. Yes, man gives up the spirit, and where is he? |
| Job 17:14 | if I have said to corruption, ‘You are my father,’ and to the worm, ‘My mother,’ and ‘My sister,’ |
| Job 18:16 | His roots will be dried up beneath. His branch will be cut off above. |
| Job 18:17 | His memory will perish from the earth. He will have no name in the street. |
| Job 19:26 | After my skin is destroyed, then I will see God in my flesh, |
| Proverbs 10:7 | The memory of the righteous is blessed, but the name of the wicked will rot. |
| Ecclesiastes 8:10 | So I saw the wicked buried. Indeed they came also from holiness. They went and were forgotten in the city where they did this. This also is vanity. |
Interlinear and lexical data from STEPBible (CC BY 4.0). Cross-reference data from OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0). Commentaries are public domain.
For personal reflection
Read the devotional page — prayer, application, and "for families"
What the Commentators Say
10 public-domain commentaries, condensed into plain language.
Adam Clarke's Commentary Methodist/Wesleyan 1826
Clarke notes that rechem means compassion and that mercy itself will forget the sinner. He believes avlah refers to a shoot so it will be broken off like a tree.
Barnes' Notes on the Bible Protestant 1832
Barnes argues that the forgotten death Job describes is actually a blessing, not a curse. The wicked person fades from memory quietly, dies a natural burial, and is not remembered for shameful punishment. Job views this peaceful end as a favor, like a dry tree that gently falls rather than being violently torn down.
Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges Anglican 1880
Job’s friends believe wicked people suffer sudden divine punishment then die normally. Job shows their view is wrong and gives his own account showing they remain alive enjoying power.
Geneva Bible Notes Reformed 1599
The Geneva note emphasizes total obliteration for the wicked: even a merciful person forgets them, worms consume them, and they are broken like a tree with no hope of revival. They become utterly forgotten, with no trace left in memory or existence.
Gill's Exposition of the Bible Baptist 1748
Gill offers several interpretations of "the womb" forgetting the wicked: it could mean his mother, his wife, or even God showing no mercy. The key image is that the wicked die quietly and are forgotten, with the worm feeding on them painlessly as if it were sweet.
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Commentary Protestant 1871
Jamieson Fausset Brown notes the womb that gave birth to the wicked person will forget him completely. The worm will eat him as if he were a tasty piece of food.
Keil & Delitzsch OT Commentary Protestant 1876
Keil and Delitzsch note that the wicked die suddenly and without struggle. Their land is left uncultivated as people avoid
Lange's Commentary Reformed 1857
Lange reads Job's complaint here as driven by the terrifying suspicion that God is deliberately hiding from him, not from inaccessibility but from a fixed purpose to prolong his suffering. The unchangeable decree behind this withdrawal, not the calamity itself, is what makes Job's heart faint. A calm but mournful resignation pervades this discourse.
Matthew Henry's Commentary Reformed/Presbyterian 1710
Henry notes that the grave destroys sinners completely so they are forgotten and wickedness is removed. Your hope lies in Christ and the resurrection.
Wesley's Explanatory Notes Methodist/Wesleyan 1754
Wesley's explanation takes each word of the verse separately. He notes that "womb" refers to the mother, and "broken" means violently shattered like a tree, which once knocked down never grows back. This highlights the irreversible, total destruction of the wicked.