If I should wash myself with snow and cleanse my hands with lye,
Parallel translations
- WEB If I wash myself with snow, and cleanse my hands with lye,
- KJV If I wash myself with snow water, and make my hands never so clean;
- NKJV If I wash myself with snow water, And cleanse my hands with soap,
- NASB “If I washed myself with snow, And cleansed my hands with lye,
- NLT Even if I were to wash myself with soap and clean my hands with lye,
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
Even the most thorough self-cleansing cannot make Job acceptable before God. It pictures the impossibility of purifying oneself in God's sight.
Overview
Job imagines washing with snow and strong lye, the strongest cleansing he can name, yet anticipates it will not avail. He intuits that human righteousness cannot meet God's holiness, a theme Scripture develops in Jeremiah 2:22. Only the cleansing God supplies in Christ truly washes the conscience (1 John 1:7; Titus 3:5).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 8
- Jer 2:22Although you wash with lye and use an abundance of soap, the stain of your guilt is still before Me,” declares the Lord GOD.
- Ps 26:6I wash my hands in innocence that I may go about Your altar, O LORD,
- 1 Jn 1:8If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
- Jer 4:14Wash the evil from your heart, O Jerusalem, so that you may be saved. How long will you harbor wicked thoughts within you?
- Isa 1:16–18Wash and cleanse yourselves. Remove your evil deeds from My sight. Stop doing evil!
- Job 31:7If my steps have turned from the path, if my heart has followed my eyes, or if impurity has stuck to my hands,
- Rom 10:3Because they were ignorant of God’s righteousness and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.
- Prov 28:13He who conceals his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them will find mercy.
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 9:30 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.