What knowest thou, that we know not? what understandest thou, which is not in us?
Parallel translations
- WEB What do you know, that we don’t know? What do you understand, which is not in us?
- BSB What do you know that we do not? What do you understand that is not clear to us?
- NKJV What do you know that we do not know? What do you understand that is not in us?
- NASB “What do you know that we do not know? What do you understand that we do not?
- NLT What do you know that we don’t? What do you understand that we do not?
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 what Job knows that the friends do not. He insists Job has no superior insight.
Overview
Eliphaz presses, 'What do you know, that we don't know?' claiming equal or greater understanding. He refuses to grant that Job's experience might reveal anything beyond their settled views. This closed posture keeps the friends from learning the truth God will later vindicate, that Job, not they, has spoken rightly.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 6
- Job 13:2What ye know, the same do I know also: I am not inferior unto you.
- 2 Cor 11:5For I suppose I was not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles.
- 2 Cor 11:21–30I speak as concerning reproach, as though we had been weak. Howbeit whereinsoever any is bold, (I speak foolishly,) I am bold also.
- 2 Cor 10:7Do ye look on things after the outward appearance? If any man trust to himself that he is Christ’s, let him of himself think this again, that, as he is Christ’s, even so are we Christ’s.
- Job 12:3But I have understanding as well as you; I am not inferior to you: yea, who knoweth not such things as these?
- Job 26:3–4How hast thou counselled him that hath no wisdom? and how hast thou plentifully declared the thing as it is?
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 15:9 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.