For the life of every living thing is in his hand, and the breath of every human being.
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.
- BSB The life of every living thing is in His hand, as well as 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?
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, ‘For we are also his offspring.’
- Job 33:4The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.
- Acts 17:25neither is he served by men’s hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he himself gives to all life and breath, and all things.
- Num 16:22They fell on their faces, and said, “God, the God of the spirits of all flesh, shall one man sin, and will you be angry with all the congregation?”
- Job 27:3(for the length of my life is still in me, and the spirit of God is in my nostrils);
- Dan 5:23but have lifted up yourself against the Lord of heaven; and they have brought the vessels of his house before you, and you and your lords, your wives and your concubines, have drunk wine from them; and you have praised the gods of silver and gold, of brass, iron, wood, and stone, which don’t see, nor hear, nor know; and the God in whose hand your breath is, and whose are all your ways, you have not glorified.
- Ps 146:3–4Don’t put your trust in princes, each a son of man in whom there is no help.
- John 3:6That which is born of the flesh is flesh. That which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
- Ps 104:29You hide your face: they are troubled; you take away their breath: they die, and return to the dust.
- Job 34:14–15If he set his heart on himself, If he gathered to himself his spirit and his breath,
- Gen 2:7Yahweh God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
- Gen 6:17I, even I, do bring the flood of waters on this earth, to destroy all flesh having the breath of life from under the sky. Everything that is in the earth will die.
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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.