Bible Strands
Job 13:8
Would you show Him partiality or argue in His defense?
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Job addresses his friends, pressing them to stop defending God with biased rhetoric. He poses this question immediately after condemning deceitful speech for God and before warning that God’s examination will expose such deception.
The words — פָּנָיו (panav) means “his face,” and תָּשִׂיאוּ (tasi'u) means “you lift up.” Together they form the idiom “lift up his face,” which denotes showing partiality or favoritism.
The thread — The prohibition against biased judgment runs through Leviticus 19:15 and Proverbs 24:23, which forbid showing partiality in legal matters. Exodus 23:2 similarly addresses courtroom fairness by forbidding siding with the crowd in a lawsuit.
Why it lands — The verse demands honest, unvarnished engagement with God’s character rather than calculated defense. It requires readers to abandon skewed advocacy and face divine reality without manipulation.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Will ye accept his person? will ye contend for God?
Cross-references
- Exodus 23:2 You shall not follow the crowd in wrongdoing. When you testify in a lawsuit, do not pervert justice by siding with the crowd.
- Proverbs 24:23 These also are sayings of the wise: To show partiality in judgment is not good.
- Leviticus 19:15 You must not pervert justice; you must not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the rich; you are to judge your neighbor fairly.
- Job 32:21 I will be partial to no one, nor will I flatter any man.
- Job 34:19 who is not partial to princes and does not favor rich over poor? For they are all the work of His hands.
- Malachi 2:9 “So I in turn have made you despised and humiliated before all the people, because you have not kept My ways, but have shown partiality in matters of the law.”