Job 12:14
Translations
King James Version (KJV)
Behold, he breaks down, and it cannot be built again: he shuts up a man, and there can be no opening.
American King James Version (AKJV)
Behold, he breaks down, and it cannot be built again: he shuts up a man, and there can be no opening.
American Standard Version (ASV)
Behold, he breaketh down, and it cannot be built again; He shutteth up a man, and there can be no opening.
Basic English Translation (BBE)
Truly, there is no building up of what is pulled down by him; when a man is shut up by him, no one may let him loose.
Webster's Revision
Behold, he breaketh down, and it cannot be built again: he shutteth up a man, and there can be no opening.
World English Bible
Behold, he breaks down, and it can't be built again. He imprisons a man, and there can be no release.
English Revised Version (ERV)
Behold, he breaketh down, and it cannot be built again; he shutteth up a man, and there can be no opening.
Clarke's Job 12:14 Bible Commentary
He breaketh down - He alone can create, and he alone can destroy. Nothing can be annihilated but by the same Power that created it. This is a most remarkable fact. No power, skill, or cunning of man can annihilate the smallest particle of matter. Man, by chemical agency, may change its form; but to reduce it to nothing belongs to God alone. In the course of his providence God breaks down, so that it cannot be built up again. See proofs of this in the total political destruction of Nineveh, Babylon, Persepolis, Tyre, and other cities, which have broken down never to be rebuilt; as well as the Assyrian, Babylonian, Grecian, and Roman empires, which have been dismembered and almost annihilated, never more to be regenerated.
He shutteth up a man - He often frustrates the best laid purposes, so that they can never be brought to good effect.
Barnes's Job 12:14 Bible Commentary
Behold, he breaketh down - None can repair what he pulls down. Cities and towns he can devote to ruin by fire, or earthquake, or the pestilence, and so completely destroy them that they can never be rebuilt. We may now refer to such illustrations as Sodom, Babylon, Petra, Tyre, Herculaneum, and Pompeii, as full proof of what is here affirmed.
He shutteth up a man - He can shut up a man in such difficulties and straits that he cannot extricate himself; see Job 11:10. The Chaldee renders this, "he shuts up a man in the grave (בקבורתא) and it cannot be opened." But the more correct idea is, that God has complete control over a man, and that he can so hedge up his way that he cannot help himself.
Wesley's Job 12:14 Bible Commentary
12:14 No opening - Without God's permission. Yea, he shuts up in the grave, and none can break open those sealed doors. He shuts up in hell, in chains of darkness, and none can pass that great gulf.