Bible Strands
Job 9:3
If one wished to contend with God, he could not answer Him one time out of a thousand.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Job speaks directly to God while processing his own rhetorical question about mortal righteousness. He introduces a hypothetical legal confrontation to illustrate the futility of a human challenging the Creator.
The words — יַחְפּוֹץ לָרִיב (yachpotz la-rib) translates literally to "if one desires to contend," paired with לֹא יַעֲנֶנּוּ (lo ya'aneinu), "he will not answer him." The text establishes a courtroom metaphor where the defendant lacks the capacity to respond to the Judge.
The thread — The impossibility of answering God appears in Job 40:2, where God commands the faultfinder to give an answer, and connects to Job 10:2 and Job 9:20 as Job repeatedly questions the grounds of divine prosecution and human guilt.
Why it lands — The verse requires the reader to acknowledge that human reasoning cannot survive a formal dispute with God. It demands the abandonment of any expectation to win against divine authority and forces a shift from self-defense to submission.
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
If he will contend with him, he cannot answer him one of a thousand.
Cross-references
- Job 10:2 I will say to God: Do not condemn me! Let me know why You prosecute me.
- Job 40:2 “Will the faultfinder contend with the Almighty? Let him who argues with God give an answer.”
- Job 9:20 Even if I were righteous, my mouth would condemn me; if I were blameless, it would declare me guilty.
- 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 23:3 If only I knew where to find Him, so that I could go to His seat.
- Job 31:35 (Oh, that I had one to hear me! Here is my signature. Let the Almighty answer me; let my accuser compose an indictment.
- Job 33:13 Why do you complain to Him that He answers nothing a man asks?
- Psalms 19:12 Who can discern his own errors? Cleanse me from my hidden faults.
- Psalms 40:12 For evils without number surround me; my sins have overtaken me, so that I cannot see. They are more than the hairs of my head, and my heart has failed within me.
- Isaiah 57:15 For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in a high and holy place, and with the oppressed and humble in spirit, to restore the spirit of the lowly and revive the heart of the contrite.