“So who am I, that I should try to answer God or even reason with him?
Parallel translations
- WEB How much less shall I answer him, And choose my words to argue with him?
- KJV How much less shall I answer him, and choose out my words to reason with him?
- BSB How then can I answer Him or choose my arguments against Him?
- NKJV “How then can I answer Him, And choose my words to reason with Him?
- NASB “How then can I answer Him, And choose my words before Him?
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 reasons that if even great powers submit, how much less can he answer God or choose words to argue with him. He feels utterly outmatched.
Overview
Drawing the conclusion from God's supremacy, Job confesses he could never frame a case against God. The disparity in power and wisdom renders him speechless. This honest admission of human inadequacy before God highlights the need Job will soon express for an arbiter between himself and God (Job 9:33).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 8
- Job 23:4I would set my cause in order before him, and fill my mouth with arguments.
- 1 Kgs 8:27But will God in very deed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens can’t contain you; how much less this house that I have built!
- Job 23:7There the upright might reason with him, so I should be delivered forever from my judge.
- Job 25:6How much less man, who is a worm, the son of man, who is a worm!”
- Job 4:19How much more, those who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, who are crushed before the moth!
- Job 11:4–5For you say, ‘My doctrine is pure. I am clean in your eyes.’
- Job 33:5If you can, answer me. Set your words in order before me, and stand up.
- Job 9:3If he is pleased to contend with him, he can’t answer him one time in a thousand.
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 9:14 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.