How then can man be justified with God? or how can he be clean that is born of a woman?
Parallel translations
- WEB How then can man be just with God? Or how can he who is born of a woman be clean?
- BSB How then can a man be just before God? How can one born of woman be pure?
- NKJV How then can man be righteous before God? Or how can he be pure who is born of a woman?
- NASB “How then can mankind be righteous with God? Or how can anyone who is born of woman be pure?
- NLT How can a mortal be innocent before God? Can anyone born of a woman be pure?
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
Bildad asks how any human born of woman can be righteous or clean before God. It matters because it raises the central question of how sinful man can be justified.
Overview
Bildad poses the profound question of how mortal man can be just or pure in God's sight. The question is right and important, exposing humanity's universal impurity before a holy God. The book of Job does not fully answer it, but the gospel does: sinners are justified not by their own cleanness but through Christ, who is our righteousness (1 Cor. 1:30).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 14
- Rom 5:1Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:
- Ps 130:3If thou, LORD, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?
- Job 15:14–16What is man, that he should be clean? and he which is born of a woman, that he should be righteous?
- Job 4:17–19Shall mortal man be more just than God? shall a man be more pure than his maker?
- Job 9:2I know it is so of a truth: but how should man be just with God?
- Ps 143:2And enter not into judgment with thy servant: for in thy sight shall no man living be justified.
- Rev 1:5And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood,
- Ps 51:5Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.
- Zech 13:1In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness.
- Job 14:3–4And dost thou open thine eyes upon such an one, and bringest me into judgment with thee?
- 1 Jn 1:9If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
- Rom 3:19–20Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.
- Eph 2:3Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.
- 1 Cor 6:11And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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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 25:4 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.