¶“God will not turn back His anger; Beneath Him the helpers of Rahab cower.
Parallel translations
- WEB “God will not withdraw his anger. The helpers of Rahab stoop under him.
- KJV If God will not withdraw his anger, the proud helpers do stoop under him.
- BSB God does not restrain His anger; the helpers of Rahab cower beneath Him.
- NKJV God will not withdraw His anger, The allies of the proud lie prostrate beneath Him.
- NLT And God does not restrain his anger. Even the monsters of the sea are crushed beneath his feet.
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 says God's anger is unrelenting, and even the helpers of Rahab bow beneath him. The mightiest powers submit to God.
Overview
Rahab here is a symbol of chaotic, prideful power, sometimes pictured as a sea-monster of myth used poetically in the Old Testament. Job affirms that even such proud forces stoop before God. The image magnifies God's supremacy over every power, leaving Job all the more aware of his own smallness in any contest with the Almighty.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 7
- Job 26:12He stirs up the sea with his power, and by his understanding he strikes through Rahab.
- Ps 89:10You have broken Rahab in pieces, like one of the slain. You have scattered your enemies with your mighty arm.
- Isa 30:7For Egypt helps in vain, and to no purpose; therefore I have called her Rahab who sits still.
- Isa 51:9Awake, awake, put on strength, arm of Yahweh! Awake, as in the days of old, the generations of ancient times. Isn’t it you who cut Rahab in pieces, who pierced the monster?
- Jas 4:6–7But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”
- Isa 31:2–3Yet he also is wise, and will bring disaster, and will not call back his words, but will arise against the house of the evildoers, and against the help of those who work iniquity.
- Job 40:9–11Or do you have an arm like God? Can you thunder with a voice like him?
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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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 9:13 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.