“Yes, I know that it is so, but how can a mortal be righteous before God?
Parallel translations
- WEB “Truly I know that it is so, but how can man be just with God?
- KJV I know it is so of a truth: but how should man be just with God?
- NKJV “Truly I know it is so, But how can a man be righteous before God?
- NASB “In truth I know that this is so; But how can a person be in the right with God?
- NLT “Yes, I know all this is true in principle. But how can a person be declared innocent in God’s sight?
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 grants that God is just, but asks the profound question: how can a mortal be righteous before God? It anticipates the gospel's answer of justification by grace.
Overview
Job agrees with the friends that God is righteous, yet raises the deeper issue: no human can be declared right in a dispute with the infinite, holy God. This question echoes through Scripture and finds its answer only in Christ, through whom sinners are justified by faith (Romans 3:20-24). Job feels the problem keenly without yet seeing its resolution.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 10
- Job 4:17‘Can a mortal be more righteous than God, or a man more pure than his Maker?
- Job 25:4How then can a man be just before God? How can one born of woman be pure?
- Ps 143:2Do not bring Your servant into judgment, for no one alive is righteous before You.
- Rom 3:20Therefore no one will be justified in His sight by works of the law. For the law merely brings awareness of sin.
- Job 32:2This kindled the anger of Elihu son of Barachel the Buzite, of the family of Ram. He burned with anger against Job for justifying himself rather than God,
- 1 Kgs 8:46When they sin against You—for there is no one who does not sin—and You become angry with them and deliver them to an enemy who takes them as captives to his own land, whether far or near,
- Job 33:9‘I am pure, without transgression; I am clean, with no iniquity in me.
- Job 34:5For Job has declared, ‘I am righteous, yet God has deprived me of justice.
- Job 14:3–4Do You open Your eyes to one like this? Will You bring him into judgment before You?
- Ps 130:3If You, O LORD, kept track of iniquities, then who, O Lord, could stand?
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 9:2 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.