Bible Strands
Job 25:4
How then can a man be just before God? How can one born of woman be pure?
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Bildad delivers these rhetorical questions to Job during a debate on human frailty and divine majesty. The exchange occurs within a cycle of three friends responding to Job’s suffering and claims of innocence.
The words — The Hebrew יִצְדַּק (yitzdak) translates literally to "will he be righteous," paired with יִזְכֶּה (yizkeh), meaning "will he be pure." Bildad uses these terms to question whether human moral standing can withstand divine scrutiny.
The thread — This theme of human impurity before God echoes in Job 4:17, where Bildad previously asks if a mortal can be more righteous than God. It also resonates with Psalm 130:3, which questions who could stand if God kept track of iniquities.
Why it lands — The text demands a reader confront the impossibility of achieving inherent moral purity before God. It forces the acknowledgment that human righteousness cannot be self-generated but must be measured against divine standard.
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
How then can man be justified with God? or how can he be clean that is born of a woman?
Cross-references
- Romans 5:1 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
- Psalms 130:3 If You, O LORD, kept track of iniquities, then who, O Lord, could stand?
- Job 4:17 ‘Can a mortal be more righteous than God, or a man more pure than his Maker?
- Job 9:2 “Yes, I know that it is so, but how can a mortal be righteous before God?
- Job 15:14 What is man, that he should be pure, or one born of woman, that he should be righteous?
- Psalms 143:2 Do not bring Your servant into judgment, for no one alive is righteous before You.
- Psalms 51:5 Surely I was brought forth in iniquity; I was sinful when my mother conceived me.
- Revelation 1:5 and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To Him who loves us and has released us from our sins by His blood,
- Job 14:3 Do You open Your eyes to one like this? Will You bring him into judgment before You?
- Zechariah 13:1 “On that day a fountain will be opened to the house of David and the people of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and impurity.