“If one wished to dispute with Him, He could not answer Him once in a thousand times.
Parallel translations
- WEB If he is pleased to contend with him, he can’t answer him one time in a thousand.
- KJV If he will contend with him, he cannot answer him one of a thousand.
- BSB If one wished to contend with God, he could not answer Him one time out of a thousand.
- NKJV If one wished to contend with Him, He could not answer Him one time out of a thousand.
- NLT If someone wanted to take God to court, would it be possible to answer him even once in a thousand times?
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 that if anyone tried to argue his case with God, he could not answer even one of a thousand charges. Human wisdom is no match for God.
Overview
Job envisions a legal contest with God and confesses he could not respond to even one question in a thousand. The vast disparity between God's wisdom and human understanding leaves Job speechless. This sense of utter inadequacy before God's greatness drives the chapter and points to the need for a mediator (Job 9:33).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 14
- Job 10:2I will tell God, ‘Do not condemn me. Show me why you contend with me.
- Job 40:2“Shall he who argues contend with the Almighty? He who argues with God, let him answer it.”
- Ps 40:12For innumerable evils have surrounded me. My iniquities have overtaken me, so that I am not able to look up. They are more than the hairs of my head. My heart has failed me.
- 1 Jn 1:8If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
- Rom 9:20But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed ask him who formed it, “Why did you make me like this?”
- 1 Jn 3:20because if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things.
- Isa 57:15–16For thus says the high and lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also who is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite.
- Job 33:13Why do you strive against him, because he doesn’t give account of any of his matters?
- Job 31:35–37oh that I had one to hear me! Behold, here is my signature! Let the Almighty answer me! Let the accuser write my indictment!
- Job 9:20Though I am righteous, my own mouth shall condemn me. Though I am blameless, it shall prove me perverse.
- Job 9:32–33For he is not a man, as I am, that I should answer him, that we should come together in judgment.
- Ps 19:12Who can discern his errors? Forgive me from hidden errors.
- Job 23:3–7Oh that I knew where I might find him! That I might come even to his seat!
- Job 34:14–15If he set his heart on himself, If he gathered to himself his spirit and his breath,
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 9:3 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.