If I wash myself with snow water, and make my hands never so clean;
Parallel translations
- WEB If I wash myself with snow, and cleanse my hands with lye,
- BSB If I should wash myself with snow and cleanse my hands with lye,
- 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 2:22For though thou wash thee with nitre, and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before me, saith the Lord GOD.
- Ps 26:6I will wash mine hands in innocency: so will I compass thine altar, O LORD:
- 1 Jn 1:8If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
- Jer 4:14O Jerusalem, wash thine heart from wickedness, that thou mayest be saved. How long shall thy vain thoughts lodge within thee?
- Isa 1:16–18Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil;
- Job 31:7If my step hath turned out of the way, and mine heart walked after mine eyes, and if any blot hath cleaved to mine hands;
- Rom 10:3For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.
- Prov 28:13He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.
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 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.