¶“Can you discover the depths of God? Can you discover the limits of the Almighty?
Parallel translations
- WEB “Can you fathom the mystery of God? Or can you probe the limits of the Almighty?
- KJV Canst thou by searching find out God? canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection?
- BSB Can you fathom the deep things of God or discover the limits of the Almighty?
- NKJV “Canyou search out the deep things of God? Can you find out the limits of the Almighty?
- NLT “Can you solve the mysteries of God? Can you discover everything about the Almighty?
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Zophar asks if Job can fathom the depths of God or probe the limits of the Almighty. The question rightly affirms God's incomprehensible greatness.
Overview
Here Zophar speaks genuine truth: no one can fully search out God or measure His infinite being. The point, sound in itself, is wielded to silence Job rather than comfort him. Scripture affirms God's unsearchable depths, while the gospel reveals that this incomprehensible God has made Himself known in Christ (Romans 11:33; John 1:18).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 12
- Rom 11:33Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past tracing out!
- Eccl 3:11He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in their hearts, yet so that man can’t find out the work that God has done from the beginning even to the end.
- Ps 145:3Great is Yahweh, and greatly to be praised! His greatness is unsearchable.
- Eph 3:8To me, the very least of all saints, was this grace given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ,
- Job 5:9who does great things that can’t be fathomed, marvelous things without number;
- Job 37:23We can’t reach the Almighty. He is exalted in power. In justice and great righteousness, he will not oppress.
- Ps 77:19Your way was through the sea; your paths through the great waters. Your footsteps were not known.
- Isa 40:28Haven’t you known? Haven’t you heard? The everlasting God, Yahweh, The Creator of the ends of the earth, doesn’t faint. He isn’t weary. His understanding is unsearchable.
- 1 Cor 2:16“For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he should instruct him?” But we have Christ’s mind.
- Job 26:14Behold, these are but the outskirts of his ways. How small a whisper do we hear of him! But the thunder of his power who can understand?”
- 1 Cor 2:10But to us, God revealed them through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God.
- Matt 11:27All things have been delivered to me by my Father. No one knows the Son, except the Father; neither does anyone know the Father, except the Son, and he to whom the Son desires to reveal him.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
Job's cry for a mediator who can lay his hand on both God and man, and his confidence that 'my Redeemer lives' and will stand on the earth, reaches forward to Jesus the living Redeemer.
How Job 11:7 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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