“But you say, ‘What does God know? Can He judge through the thick darkness?
Parallel translations
- WEB You say, ‘What does God know? Can he judge through the thick darkness?
- KJV And thou sayest, How doth God know? can he judge through the dark cloud?
- BSB Yet you say: ‘What does God know? Does He judge through thick darkness?
- NKJV And you say, ‘What does God know? Can He judge through the deep darkness?
- NLT But you reply, ‘That’s why God can’t see what I am doing! How can he judge through the thick darkness?
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 puts words in Job's mouth, claiming Job believes God cannot see or judge through the thick darkness. He accuses Job of practical atheism.
Overview
Eliphaz misrepresents Job as denying God's awareness of human affairs, suggesting Job thinks the clouds hide his deeds from God. This caricatures Job, who has consistently affirmed God's intimate knowledge of him (Job 23:10). The accusation echoes the real error of the wicked (Ps 73:11), but it is unjustly applied to Job, distorting his actual faith.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 9
- Ezek 8:12Then he said to me, “Son of man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in his rooms of imagery? For they say, ‘Yahweh doesn’t see us. Yahweh has forsaken the land.’”
- Ps 10:11He says in his heart, “God has forgotten. He hides his face. He will never see it.”
- Ezek 9:9Then he said to me, “The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceedingly great, and the land is full of blood, and the city full of perversion; for they say, ‘Yahweh has forsaken the land, and Yahweh doesn’t see.’
- Ps 73:11They say, “How does God know? Is there knowledge in the Most High?”
- Isa 29:15Woe to those who deeply hide their counsel from Yahweh, and whose deeds are in the dark, and who say, “Who sees us?” and “Who knows us?”
- Ps 59:7Behold, they spew with their mouth. Swords are in their lips, “For”, they say, “who hears us?”
- Ps 94:7–9They say, “Yah will not see, neither will Jacob’s God consider.”
- Ps 64:5They encourage themselves in evil plans. They talk about laying snares secretly. They say, “Who will see them?”
- Zeph 1:12It will happen at that time, that I will search Jerusalem with lamps, and I will punish the men who are settled on their dregs, who say in their heart, “Yahweh will not do good, neither will he do evil.”
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 22:13 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.