Bible Strands
Job 33:6
I am just like you before God; I was also formed from clay.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Elihu addresses Job directly in a rhetorical exchange where he challenges Job to prepare his defense. He speaks to establish his equal standing before God before delivering his response.
The words — The phrase מֵחֹמֶר קֹרַצְתִּי (me·ḥō·mer qo·raṣ·tî) literally renders "I was nipped off from clay." The verb קָרַץ (qāraṣ) denotes pinching or molding, indicating a deliberate shaping action.
The thread — The clay metaphor appears in Job 4:19 for human fragility and in Job 10:9 where Job recalls God molding him. 2 Corinthians 5:1 later shifts the imagery to an earthly tent being dismantled and a heavenly building being received.
Why it lands — The text states Elihu's claim of shared human origin to level the rhetorical playing field before God. It requires the reader to recognize this appeal to common creaturely status as the foundation for Elihu's subsequent argument.
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
Behold, I am according to thy wish in God’s stead: I also am formed out of the clay.
Cross-references
- Job 4:19 how much more those who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundations are in the dust, who can be crushed like a moth!
- Job 10:9 Please remember that You molded me like clay. Would You now return me to dust?
- 2 Corinthians 5:1 For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is dismantled, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.
- 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.
- Genesis 3:19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat your bread, until you return to the ground—because out of it were you taken. For dust you are, and to dust you shall return.”
- Genesis 30:2 Jacob became angry with Rachel and said, “Am I in the place of God, who has withheld children from you?”
- Exodus 4:16 He will speak to the people for you. He will be your spokesman, and it will be as if you were God to him.
- Job 9:32 For He is not a man like me, that I can answer Him, that we can take each other to court.
- Job 13:12 Your maxims are proverbs of ashes; your defenses are defenses of clay.
- Job 20:22 In the midst of his plenty, he will be distressed; the full force of misery will come upon him.