If you are righteous, what do you give Him? Or what does He receive from your hand?
Parallel translations
- WEB If you are righteous, what do you give him? Or what does he receive from your hand?
- KJV If thou be righteous, what givest thou him? or what receiveth he of thine hand?
- BSB If you are righteous, what do you give Him, or what does He receive from your hand?
- NASB “If you are righteous, what do you give to Him, Or what does He receive from your hand?
- NLT If you are good, is this some great gift to him? What could you possibly give him?
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 asks what Job gives God by being righteous, or what God receives from his hand. Human goodness adds nothing to the all-sufficient God.
Overview
As sin cannot harm God, so righteousness cannot enrich Him; God receives nothing He lacks from our obedience (cf. Ps. 16:2; Rom. 11:35). This guards against viewing godliness as a way to place God in our debt. It directs us to serve God out of love and gratitude rather than merit, the very heart of grace fulfilled in the gospel where salvation is God's gift.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 6
- Job 22:2–3“Can a man be profitable to God? Surely he who is wise is profitable to himself.
- Ps 16:2My soul, you have said to Yahweh, “You are my Lord. Apart from you I have no good thing.”
- Prov 9:12If you are wise, you are wise for yourself. If you mock, you alone will bear it.
- Luke 17:10Even so you also, when you have done all the things that are commanded you, say, ‘We are unworthy servants. We have done our duty.’”
- Rom 11:35“Or who has first given to him, and it will be repaid to him again?”
- 1 Chr 29:14But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly as this? For all things come from you, and of your own have we given you.
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 35:7 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.