What then shall I do when God riseth up? and when he visiteth, what shall I answer him?
Parallel translations
- WEB What then shall I do when God rises up? When he visits, what shall I answer him?
- BSB what will I do when God rises to judge? How will I answer when called to account?
- NKJV What then shall I do when God rises up? When He punishes, how shall I answer Him?
- NASB What then could I do when God arises? And when He calls me to account, how am I to answer Him?
- NLT how could I face God? What could I say when he questioned me?
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 asks what he would do when God rises to judge if he had wronged his servants. The fear of divine accountability shaped his treatment of others.
Overview
Job reflects that mistreating his servants would leave him with no answer when God calls him to account. His ethics flow not merely from social convention but from reverence for the God who judges all. This awareness that we must answer to God for how we treat others undergirds biblical justice and finds its fullest motive in the gospel, where grace received compels grace given.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 16
- Jas 2:13For he shall have judgment without mercy, that hath shewed no mercy; and mercy rejoiceth against judgment.
- Ps 9:12When he maketh inquisition for blood, he remembereth them: he forgetteth not the cry of the humble.
- Ps 44:21Shall not God search this out? for he knoweth the secrets of the heart.
- Ps 9:19Arise, O LORD; let not man prevail: let the heathen be judged in thy sight.
- Ps 10:12–15Arise, O LORD; O God, lift up thine hand: forget not the humble.
- Zech 2:13Be silent, O all flesh, before the LORD: for he is raised up out of his holy habitation.
- Rom 3:19Now 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.
- Job 10:2I will say unto God, Do not condemn me; shew me wherefore thou contendest with me.
- Mic 7:4The best of them is as a brier: the most upright is sharper than a thorn hedge: the day of thy watchmen and thy visitation cometh; now shall be their perplexity.
- Ps 7:6Arise, O LORD, in thine anger, lift up thyself because of the rage of mine enemies: and awake for me to the judgment that thou hast commanded.
- Job 9:32For he is not a man, as I am, that I should answer him, and we should come together in judgment.
- Ps 76:9When God arose to judgment, to save all the meek of the earth. Selah.
- Ps 143:2And enter not into judgment with thy servant: for in thy sight shall no man living be justified.
- Isa 10:3And what will ye do in the day of visitation, and in the desolation which shall come from far? to whom will ye flee for help? and where will ye leave your glory?
- Hos 9:7The days of visitation are come, the days of recompence are come; Israel shall know it: the prophet is a fool, the spiritual man is mad, for the multitude of thine iniquity, and the great hatred.
- Mark 7:2And when they saw some of his disciples eat bread with defiled, that is to say, with unwashen, hands, they found fault.
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 31:14 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
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