“Behold, my eye has seen all this, My ear has heard and understood it.
Parallel translations
- WEB “Behold, my eye has seen all this. My ear has heard and understood it.
- KJV Lo, mine eye hath seen all this, mine ear hath heard and understood it.
- BSB “Indeed, my eyes have seen all this; my ears have heard and understood.
- NKJV “Behold, my eye has seen all this, My ear has heard and understood it.
- NLT “Look, I have seen all this with my own eyes and heard it with my own ears, and now I understand.
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
Job claims firsthand knowledge of all his friends have said about God. He is no novice to the truths they recite.
Overview
Opening his rebuttal, Job insists his eye has seen and his ear has heard and understood all that his friends assert. He is not ignorant of God's greatness; he has experienced and reflected on it himself. This sets up his complaint that their lectures add nothing he does not already know.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 9
- Job 5:9–16who does great things that can’t be fathomed, marvelous things without number;
- Job 15:17–18“I will show you, listen to me; that which I have seen I will declare
- Job 12:9–25Who doesn’t know that in all these, Yahweh’s hand has done this,
- Job 4:12“Now a thing was secretly brought to me. My ear received a whisper of it.
- 1 Jn 1:3that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us. Yes, and our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son, Jesus Christ.
- Job 5:27Look this, we have searched it, so it is. Hear it, and know it for your good.”
- Job 8:8–10“Please inquire of past generations. Find out about the learning of their fathers.
- Job 42:3–6You asked, ‘Who is this who hides counsel without knowledge?’ therefore I have uttered that which I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I didn’t know.
- Ps 78:3–4Which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us.
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
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 13:1 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.