Bible Strands
Job 15:9
What do you know that we do not? What do you understand that is not clear to us?
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Eliphaz addresses Job during their debate, countering Job’s claim to exclusive divine revelation by appealing to the collective authority of the elders.
The words — The Hebrew מַה־יָּדַעְתָּ (mah-ya.da'ta) and תָּבִין (ta.vin) literally ask “what do you know” and “what do you understand,” framing Job’s insights as isolated from the group’s shared knowledge.
The thread — This challenge to exclusive wisdom appears in Job 12:3 and Job 13:2, and Paul mirrors the rhetorical structure in 2 Corinthians 11:5.
Why it lands — The text first states that Job’s claimed insights are not clear to the elders, then asks the reader to evaluate whether personal revelation survives scrutiny against communal and historical witness.
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
What knowest thou, that we know not? what understandest thou, which is not in us?
Cross-references
- Job 13:2 What you know, I also know; I am not inferior to you.
- 2 Corinthians 11:5 I consider myself in no way inferior to those “super-apostles.”
- Job 12:3 But I also have a mind; I am not inferior to you. Who does not know such things as these?
- Job 26:3 How you have counseled the unwise and provided fully sound insight!
- 2 Corinthians 10:7 You are looking at outward appearances. If anyone is confident that he belongs to Christ, he should remind himself that we belong to Christ just as much as he does.
- 2 Corinthians 11:21 To my shame I concede that we were too weak for that! Speaking as a fool, however, I can match what anyone else dares to boast about.