Given its strength, can you trust it? Can you leave and trust the ox to do your work?
Parallel translations
- WEB Will you trust him, because his strength is great? Or will you leave to him your labor?
- KJV Wilt thou trust him, because his strength is great? or wilt thou leave thy labour to him?
- BSB Can you rely on his great strength? Will you leave your hard work to him?
- NKJV Will you trust him because his strength is great? Or will you leave your labor to him?
- NASB “Will you trust him because his strength is great, And leave your labor to 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
Will Job trust the wild ox's great strength or hand over his heavy labor to it? Such reliance would be foolish.
Overview
God asks whether Job would depend on the wild ox's power to do his work. The animal cannot be trusted to serve human ends. The point is that Job controls neither this creature nor the vast world it represents, all of which God upholds.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 13
- Gen 1:28God blessed them. God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
- Ps 20:7Some trust in chariots, and some in horses, but we trust the name of Yahweh our God.
- Ps 144:14Our oxen will pull heavy loads. There is no breaking in, and no going away, and no outcry in our streets.
- Prov 14:4Where no oxen are, the crib is clean, but much increase is by the strength of the ox.
- Gen 1:26God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
- Gen 42:26They loaded their donkeys with their grain, and departed from there.
- Isa 30:6The burden of the animals of the South. Through the land of trouble and anguish, of the lioness and the lion, the viper and fiery flying serpent, they carry their riches on the shoulders of young donkeys, and their treasures on the humps of camels, to an unprofitable people.
- Gen 9:2The fear of you and the dread of you will be on every animal of the earth, and on every bird of the sky. Everything that moves along the ground, and all the fish of the sea, are delivered into your hand.
- Isa 31:1–3Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, and rely on horses, and trust in chariots because they are many, and in horsemen because they are very strong, but they don’t look to the Holy One of Israel, and they don’t seek Yahweh!
- Isa 30:16but you said, “No, for we will flee on horses”; therefore you will flee; and, “We will ride on the swift”; therefore those who pursue you will be swift.
- Ps 33:16–17There is no king saved by the multitude of an army. A mighty man is not delivered by great strength.
- Ps 147:10He doesn’t delight in the strength of the horse. He takes no pleasure in the legs of a man.
- Isa 46:1Bel bows down. Nebo stoops. Their idols are carried by animals, and on the livestock. The things that you carried around are heavy loads, a burden for the weary.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Commentaries & study tools
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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 39:11 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.