Bible Strands
Job 6:11
What strength do I have, that I should still hope? What is my future, that I should be patient?
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Job speaks from the center of unrelenting physical and emotional suffering, immediately after affirming he has not denied God’s words and immediately before questioning whether his flesh is made of bronze.
The words — כֹּחִי (ko'chi) literally means "my strength," and קִצִּי (qitzi) literally means "my end" or "my future," framing his lament as a practical calculation of available resources against the duration of his trial.
The thread — This structural doubt about endurance runs parallel to Scripture’s repeated emphasis on human limitation, appearing alongside God’s awareness of human dust in Psalms 103:14, the extinguishing of days in Job 17:1, and the brevity of a human lifespan in Psalms 39:5.
Why it lands — The text demands a reader to evaluate the logical foundation of hope and patience when facing prolonged affliction, requiring an honest accounting of whether human endurance can outlast a finite lifespan without external sustenance.
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
What is my strength, that I should hope? and what is mine end, that I should prolong my life?
Cross-references
- Psalms 103:14 For He knows our frame; He is mindful that we are dust.
- Job 17:1 “My spirit is broken; my days are extinguished; the grave awaits me.
- Psalms 39:5 You, indeed, have made my days as handbreadths, and my lifetime as nothing before You. Truly each man at his best exists as but a breath. Selah
- Psalms 102:23 He has broken my strength on the way; He has cut short my days.
- Job 7:5 My flesh is clothed with worms and encrusted with dirt; my skin is cracked and festering.
- Job 10:20 Are my days not few? Withdraw from me, that I may have a little comfort,
- Job 13:25 Would You frighten a windblown leaf? Would You chase after dry chaff?
- Job 13:28 So man wastes away like something rotten, like a moth-eaten garment.
- Job 17:14 and say to corruption, ‘You are my father,’ and to the worm, ‘My mother,’ or ‘My sister,’
- Job 21:4 Is my complaint against a man? Then why should I not be impatient?