“What is my strength, that I should wait? And what is my end, that I should endure?
Parallel translations
- WEB What is my strength, that I should wait? What is my end, that I should be patient?
- KJV What is my strength, that I should hope? and what is mine end, that I should prolong my life?
- 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?
- 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 knows how we are made. He remembers that we are dust.
- Ps 102:23He weakened my strength along the course. He shortened my days.
- Ps 39:5Behold, you have made my days hand widths. My lifetime is as nothing before you. Surely every man stands as a breath.” Selah.
- Job 17:1“My spirit is consumed. My days are extinct, And the grave is ready for me.
- Job 13:28though I am decaying like a rotten thing, like a garment that is moth-eaten.
- Ps 90:5–10You sweep them away as they sleep. In the morning they sprout like new grass.
- Job 21:4As for me, is my complaint to man? Why shouldn’t I be impatient?
- Job 13:25Will you harass a driven leaf? Will you pursue the dry stubble?
- Job 17:14–16If I have said to corruption, ‘You are my father;’ to the worm, ‘My mother,’ and ‘my sister;’
- Job 10:20Aren’t my days few? Cease then. Leave me alone, that I may find a little comfort,
- Job 7:5–7My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust. My skin closes up, and breaks out afresh.
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.