Can any mortal be pure? Can anyone born of a woman be just?
Parallel translations
- WEB What is man, that he should be clean? What is he who is born of a woman, that he should be righteous?
- KJV What is man, that he should be clean? and he which is born of a woman, that he should be righteous?
- BSB What is man, that he should be pure, or one born of woman, that he should be righteous?
- NKJV “Whatis man, that he could be pure? And he who is born of a woman, that he could be righteous?
- NASB “What is man, that he would be pure, Or he who is born of a woman, that he would be righteous?
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
Eliphaz asks how any human, born of woman, could be clean or righteous. He stresses universal human sinfulness.
Overview
Eliphaz asks, 'What is man, that he should be clean? What is he who is born of a woman, that he should be righteous?' The truth he states, that no one is pure before God, is sound and echoes elsewhere in Scripture. Yet he wields it to condemn Job rather than to humble himself, and the gospel answers this need: righteousness comes not from man but as God's gift in Christ.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 15
- Eccl 7:20Surely there is not a righteous man on earth, who does good and doesn’t sin.
- Job 14:4Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one.
- Prov 20:9Who can say, “I have made my heart pure. I am clean and without sin?”
- Rom 7:18For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwells no good thing. For desire is present with me, but I don’t find it doing that which is good.
- Job 25:4–6How then can man be just with God? Or how can he who is born of a woman be clean?
- 1 Kgs 8:46If they sin against you (for there is no man who doesn’t sin), and you are angry with them, and deliver them to the enemy, so that they carry them away captive to the land of the enemy, far off or near;
- Ps 14:3They have all gone aside. They have together become corrupt. There is no one who does good, no, not one.
- 1 Jn 1:8–10If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
- Ps 51:5Behold, I was born in iniquity. In sin my mother conceived me.
- Job 9:2“Truly I know that it is so, but how can man be just with God?
- Eccl 7:29Behold, I have only found this: that God made man upright; but they search for many schemes.”
- Eph 2:2–3in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the children of disobedience;
- 2 Chr 6:36“If they sin against you (for there is no man who doesn’t sin), and you are angry with them, and deliver them to the enemy, so that they carry them away captive to a land far off or near;
- John 3:6That which is born of the flesh is flesh. That which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
- Gal 3:22But the Scriptures imprisoned all things under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.
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 15:14 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.