The life of every living thing is in His hand, as well as the breath of all mankind.
Parallel translations
- WEB in whose hand is the life of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind?
- KJV In whose hand is the soul of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind.
- NKJV In whose hand is the life of every living thing, And the breath of all mankind?
- NASB In whose hand is the life of every living thing, And the breath of all mankind?
- NLT For the life of every living thing is in his hand, and the breath of every human being.
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
In God's hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind. He sustains all living things moment by moment.
Overview
Job confesses that the very breath and life of all creatures rest in God's sovereign hand. This affirms God as the ongoing giver and sustainer of life, not merely its distant origin (Acts 17:25, 28). Recognizing that our breath is in His hand humbles human pride and grounds our trust in the God who upholds us in Christ.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 12
- Acts 17:28‘For in Him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are His offspring.’
- Job 33:4The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.
- Acts 17:25Nor is He served by human hands, as if He needed anything, because He Himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.
- Num 16:22But Moses and Aaron fell facedown and said, “O God, the God of the spirits of all flesh, when one man sins, will You be angry with the whole congregation?”
- Job 27:3as long as my breath is still within me and the breath of God remains in my nostrils,
- Dan 5:23Instead, you have exalted yourself against the Lord of heaven. The vessels from His house were brought to you, and as you drank wine from them with your nobles, wives, and concubines, you praised your gods of silver and gold, bronze and iron, wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or understand. But you have failed to glorify the God who holds in His hand your very breath and all your ways.
- Ps 146:3–4Put not your trust in princes, in mortal man, who cannot save.
- John 3:6Flesh is born of flesh, but spirit is born of the Spirit.
- Ps 104:29When You hide Your face, they are terrified; when You take away their breath, they die and return to dust.
- Job 34:14–15If He were to set His heart to it and withdraw His Spirit and breath,
- Gen 2:7Then the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and the man became a living being.
- Gen 6:17And behold, I will bring floodwaters upon the earth to destroy every creature under the heavens that has the breath of life. Everything on the earth will perish.
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 12:10 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
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.