Then will I also confess unto thee that thine own right hand can save thee.
Parallel translations
- WEB Then I will also admit to you that your own right hand can save you.
- BSB Then I will confess to you that your own right hand can save you.
- NKJV Then I will also confess to you That your own right hand can save you.
- NASB “Then I will also confess to you, That your own right hand can save you.
- NLT Then even I would praise you, for your own strength would save you.
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
God says that if Job could do all this, then God would acknowledge that Job's own hand could save him. The point is that salvation belongs to God, not to human strength.
Overview
God concludes the challenge with telling irony: only if Job could rule and judge like God would his own hand be able to save him. Since he cannot, Job must look outside himself for deliverance. This exposes the futility of self-salvation and prepares the way for the gospel truth that salvation is the Lord's. No one can save himself; we must be saved by God's grace in Christ.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 5
- Isa 40:29He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength.
- Eph 2:4–9But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,
- Ps 44:6For I will not trust in my bow, neither shall my sword save me.
- Ps 44:3For they got not the land in possession by their own sword, neither did their own arm save them: but thy right hand, and thine arm, and the light of thy countenance, because thou hadst a favour unto them.
- Rom 5:6For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.
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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 40:14 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
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.