“Do you think it is right for you to claim, ‘I am righteous before God’?
Parallel translations
- WEB “Do you think this to be your right, or do you say, ‘My righteousness is more than God’s,’
- KJV Thinkest thou this to be right, that thou saidst, My righteousness is more than God’s?
- BSB “Do you think this is just? You say, ‘I am more righteous than God.’
- NKJV “Do you think this is right? Do you say, ‘My righteousness is more than God’s’?
- NASB “Do you think this is in accordance with justice? Do you say, ‘My righteousness is more than God’s’?
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
Elihu questions whether Job thinks it right to claim his righteousness exceeds God's. He confronts what he sees as Job's self-justifying complaint.
Overview
Elihu challenges the implication in Job's words that Job is more in the right than God. While Job longed to be vindicated, he never truly claimed superiority to God, so Elihu sharpens Job's words beyond their intent. Still, the verse exposes the human tendency to elevate our sense of justice above God's, a pride answered only by submitting to God's righteousness revealed in Christ.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 9
- Matt 12:36–37I tell you that every idle word that men speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment.
- Job 34:5For Job has said, ‘I am righteous, God has taken away my right:
- Job 40:8Will you even annul my judgment? Will you condemn me, that you may be justified?
- Luke 19:22“He said to him, ‘Out of your own mouth will I judge you, you wicked servant! You knew that I am an exacting man, taking up that which I didn’t lay down, and reaping that which I didn’t sow.
- Job 16:17Although there is no violence in my hands, and my prayer is pure.
- Job 27:2–6“As God lives, who has taken away my right, the Almighty, who has made my soul bitter
- Job 9:17For he breaks me with a storm, and multiplies my wounds without cause.
- Job 19:6–7know now that God has subverted me, and has surrounded me with his net.
- Job 10:7Although you know that I am not wicked, there is no one who can deliver out of your hand.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Commentaries & study tools
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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 35:2 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.