What is my strength, that I should hope? and what is mine end, that I should prolong my life?
Parallel translations
- WEB What is my strength, that I should wait? What is my end, that I should be patient?
- BSB What strength do I have, that I should still hope? What is my future, that I should be patient?
- NKJV “What strength do I have, that I should hope? And what is my end, that I should prolong my life?
- NASB “What is my strength, that I should wait? And what is my end, that I should endure?
- NLT But I don’t have the strength to endure. I have nothing to live for.
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 strength he has to wait and what end he has to be patient. He feels he lacks the resources to endure any longer.
Overview
Job questions whether he has the strength or any prospect that would warrant continued patience. He feels emptied of the power to go on. The honest admission of human weakness sets the stage for the gospel truth that God's strength is made perfect in weakness, and that those who wait on the Lord, finally in Christ, find renewed strength they cannot summon on their own.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 11
- Ps 103:14–16For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust.
- Ps 102:23He weakened my strength in the way; he shortened my days.
- Ps 39:5Behold, thou hast made my days as an handbreadth; and mine age is as nothing before thee: verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity. Selah.
- Job 17:1My breath is corrupt, my days are extinct, the graves are ready for me.
- Job 13:28And he, as a rotten thing, consumeth, as a garment that is moth eaten.
- Ps 90:5–10Thou carriest them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep: in the morning they are like grass which groweth up.
- Job 21:4As for me, is my complaint to man? and if it were so, why should not my spirit be troubled?
- Job 13:25Wilt thou break a leaf driven to and fro? and wilt thou pursue the dry stubble?
- Job 17:14–16I have said to corruption, Thou art my father: to the worm, Thou art my mother, and my sister.
- Job 10:20Are not my days few? cease then, and let me alone, that I may take comfort a little,
- Job 7:5–7My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust; my skin is broken, and become loathsome.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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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 6:11 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.