Bible Strands
Job 27:3
as long as my breath is still within me and the breath of God remains in my nostrils,
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Job addresses his companions and himself while swearing a solemn oath about his integrity. He anchors his forthcoming vow to the remaining duration of his physical life.
The words — נִשְׁמָתִי (nishmati) translates literally as "my breath" and ר֫וּחַ אֱלֹהִים (ruach Elohim) means "the spirit/breath of God." These terms denote the physiological and divine forces that sustain his existence.
The thread — The breath imagery appears in Genesis 2:7 where God imparts life to humanity, and reappears in Job 33:4 and Job 32:8 as the divine source of life and human understanding.
Why it lands — It requires the reader to accept that moral testimony is limited by the finite span of divinely sustained life. The text frames Job’s defense as a urgent obligation to speak truth only while his bodily breath remains.
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
All the while my breath is in me, and the spirit of God is in my nostrils;
Cross-references
- Genesis 2:7 Then the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and the man became a living being.
- Job 33:4 The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.
- Job 32:8 But there is a spirit in a man, the breath of the Almighty, that gives him understanding.
- Isaiah 2:22 Put no more trust in man, who has only the breath in his nostrils. Of what account is he?
- Acts 17:25 Nor is He served by human hands, as if He needed anything, because He Himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.