Bible Strands
Job 22:13
Yet you say: ‘What does God know? Does He judge through thick darkness?
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Eliphaz addresses Job during his third speech, countering Job's complaints about God's hiddenness and delayed justice.
The words — עֲרָפֶל ('a.ra.Fel) = thick darkness and יִשְׁפּוֹט (yish.Pot) = will he judge.
The thread — This claim recurs in Psalms 73:11 and Psalms 10:11, where the wicked assert that divine concealment negates judgment, and in Ezekiel 8:12, where elders hide their idolatry in darkness.
Why it lands — It forces the reader to confront the error of equating divine invisibility with divine indifference, requiring a rejection of the assumption that hiddenness equals absence.
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
And thou sayest, How doth God know? can he judge through the dark cloud?
Cross-references
- Ezekiel 8:12 “Son of man,” He said to me, “do you see what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the darkness, each at the shrine of his own idol? For they are saying, ‘The LORD does not see us; the LORD has forsaken the land.’”
- Psalms 10:11 He says to himself, “God has forgotten; He hides His face and never sees.”
- Psalms 73:11 The wicked say, “How can God know? Does the Most High have knowledge?”
- Ezekiel 9:9 He replied, “The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceedingly great. The land is full of bloodshed, and the city is full of perversity. For they say, ‘The LORD has forsaken the land; the LORD does not see.’
- Psalms 59:7 See what they spew from their mouths—sharp words from their lips: “For who can hear us?”
- Psalms 94:7 They say, “The LORD does not see; the God of Jacob pays no heed.”
- Isaiah 29:15 Woe to those who dig deep to hide their plans from the LORD. In darkness they do their works and say, “Who sees us, and who will know?”
- Psalms 64:5 They hold fast to their evil purpose; they speak of hiding their snares. “Who will see them?” they say.
- Zephaniah 1:12 And at that time I will search Jerusalem with lamps and punish the men settled in complacency, who say to themselves, ‘The LORD will do nothing, either good or bad.’