Bible Strands
Job 41:11
Who has given to Me that I should repay him? Everything under heaven is Mine.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — God addresses Job within a monologue describing the untamable strength of Leviathan. The speaker poses a rhetorical question immediately after declaring that no human can stand against Him.
The words — מִי (mi) translates literally as "who?" and תַּחַת (taḥat) means "under." These terms frame the rhetorical challenge and define the spatial limit of divine possession.
The thread — The first clause appears in Romans 11:35, while the second clause matches the scope of Psalms 24:1 and 1 Chronicles 29:11. The pattern of unowed debt and universal ownership repeats across wisdom, historical, and apostolic writings.
Why it lands — The text asserts that God owes nothing to any creature and claims absolute title over all creation. It requires the reader to abandon claims of independent merit and acknowledge total dependence on divine sovereignty.
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
Who hath prevented me, that I should repay him? whatsoever is under the whole heaven is mine.
Cross-references
- Romans 11:35 “Who has first given to God, that God should repay him?”
- Psalms 24:1 A Psalm of David. The earth is the LORD’s, and the fullness thereof, the world and all who dwell therein.
- 1 Chronicles 29:11 Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the splendor and the majesty, for everything in heaven and on earth belongs to You. Yours, O LORD, is the kingdom, and You are exalted as head over all.
- Deuteronomy 10:14 Behold, to the LORD your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, and the earth and everything in it.
- Job 35:7 If you are righteous, what do you give Him, or what does He receive from your hand?
- Psalms 50:12 If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world is Mine, and the fullness thereof.
- Exodus 19:5 Now if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, you will be My treasured possession out of all the nations—for the whole earth is Mine.
- 1 Corinthians 10:26 for, “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof.”
- Job 22:2 “Can a man be of use to God? Can even a wise man benefit Him?
- Psalms 21:3 For You welcomed him with rich blessings; You placed on his head a crown of pure gold.