Isn’t it that I have no help in me, That wisdom is driven quite from me?
Parallel translations
- KJV Is not my help in me? and is wisdom driven quite from me?
- BSB Is there any help within me now that success is driven from me?
- NKJV Is my help not within me? And is success driven from me?
- NASB “Is it that my help is not within me, And that a good outcome is driven away from me?
- NLT No, I am utterly helpless, without any chance of success.
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 laments that he has no help in himself and that wisdom has been driven from him. He feels utterly without inner resources or guidance.
Overview
Job admits both helplessness and a loss of wisdom, as if every support has been stripped away. This is the cry of one at the end of his own strength. It points beyond self to the need for help and wisdom from outside, ultimately found in Christ, who is made for us wisdom and the very help of the helpless when our own resources fail.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 6
- Job 26:2“How have you helped him who is without power! How have you saved the arm that has no strength!
- 2 Cor 1:12For our boasting is this: the testimony of our conscience, that in holiness and sincerity of God, not in fleshly wisdom but in the grace of God we behaved ourselves in the world, and more abundantly toward you.
- Job 13:2What you know, I know also. I am not inferior to you.
- Job 12:2–3“No doubt, but you are the people, and wisdom shall die with you.
- Job 19:28If you say, ‘How we will persecute him!’ because the root of the matter is found in me,
- Gal 6:4But let each man examine his own work, and then he will have reason to boast in himself, and not in someone else.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.
Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.
Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
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 6:13 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.