Job 9

Then Job answered:

1Then Job answered and said,

2"Yes, I know that this is true. But how can a human being be counted as right in a case against God?

2I know it is so of a truth: but how should man be just with God?

NoteFrom here to the end of the chapter Job talks in the vocabulary of a lawsuit: being "just" or "right" means winning your case, not being morally flawless. The Hebrew phrase can mean "be in the right before God" or "win a case against God", Job is asking whether a human could ever come out of such a trial as the winner.

3If a person wanted to argue a case with God, he could not answer him one time out of a thousand.

3If he will contend with him, he cannot answer him one of a thousand.

NoteThe Hebrew leaves open who does the questioning and who fails to answer: either a person could not answer one of God's thousand questions, or God would not answer one of a person's thousand. Ancient and modern translators divide over it, and the sentence works either way.

4God is wise in mind and great in strength. Who has ever set himself against God and come out well?

4He is wise in heart, and mighty in strength: who hath hardened himself against him, and hath prospered?

Note"Hardened himself" translates a phrase meaning to stiffen oneself in defiance, like an animal bracing its neck against the yoke. "Prospered" here means came through it intact, not grew rich.

5He moves mountains before they know it. He turns them upside down when he is angry.

5Which removeth the mountains, and they know not: which overturneth them in his anger.

6He shakes the earth loose from its place, and the pillars that hold it up shake.

6Which shaketh the earth out of her place, and the pillars thereof tremble.

NoteHebrew descriptions of the world picture the earth as a flat structure set on pillars or foundation posts, the way a building or a tent platform rests on supports. An earthquake was the pillars shuddering.

7He gives an order to the sun, and it does not shine. He shuts the stars away.

7Which commandeth the sun, and it riseth not; and sealeth up the stars.

Note"Seals up" is the image of closing something with a wax or clay seal (a door, a bag, a legal document), so that no one can open it. God shuts the stars away as one shuts a sealed room.

8He alone spreads out the heavens, and he walks on the waves of the sea.

8Which alone spreadeth out the heavens, and treadeth upon the waves of the sea.

Note"Spreads out the heavens" uses the verb for stretching a tent-cloth over its poles. The second half literally reads "treads on the backs of the sea"; in the older poetry of the region, the sea is a defeated opponent, and treading on its back is what a victor does to a beaten enemy.

9He made the Bear, Orion, and the Pleiades, and the star groups of the southern sky.

9Which maketh Arcturus, Orion, and Pleiades, and the chambers of the south.

NoteThe Hebrew star names are ʿAsh, Kesil and Kimah, and no one is certain which constellations they mean; the traditional guesses are the Bear (the KJV's "Arcturus"), Orion and the Pleiades. "The chambers of the south" means the southern stars, imagined as rooms out of which the constellations come.

10He does great things too deep to figure out, and wonders too many to count.

10Which doeth great things past finding out; yea, and wonders without number.

11Look, he goes right past me, and I do not see him. He moves on, and I do not notice him.

11Lo, he goeth by me, and I see him not: he passeth on also, but I perceive him not.

12See, when he takes something away, who can stop him? Who will say to him, 'What are you doing?'

12Behold, he taketh away, who can hinder him? who will say unto him, What doest thou?

Note"What are you doing?" was a set phrase in the ancient Near East for the question no subject was permitted to put to a king. Job's point is that no one is in a position to call God to account.

13God does not hold back his anger. Under him even the proud helpers bow low.

13If God will not withdraw his anger, the proud helpers do stoop under him.

NoteThe Hebrew reads "the helpers of Rahab", Rahab is not the woman of Jericho but the name of a sea monster in older poetry, a figure for the chaotic waters. Her "helpers" are her allies in that fight. The KJV translators, unsure of the name, read it as the ordinary word for "pride," which is why it comes out as "the proud helpers."

14So how could I ever answer him, or pick out the right words to argue with him?

14How much less shall I answer him, and choose out my words to reason with him?

15Even if I were in the right, I could not answer him. I could only beg my judge for mercy.

15Whom, though I were righteous, yet would I not answer, but I would make supplication to my judge.

NoteThe word rendered "my judge" can also mean "my opponent at law." That double sense is the knot of the whole speech: the one Job would have to sue is also the one who would try the case.

16If I called out to him and he answered me, I still would not believe he was really listening to me.

16If I had called, and he had answered me; yet would I not believe that he had hearkened unto my voice.

17For he crushes me with a storm, and he adds wound after wound to me for no reason.

17For he breaketh me with a tempest, and multiplieth my wounds without cause.

NoteThe Hebrew word here differs by one letter from the word for "a hair," and some readers take the line as "he crushes me for a hair" (that is, over a trifle), rather than "with a storm." Both readings are old.

18He will not let me catch my breath. Instead he fills me with bitterness.

18He will not suffer me to take my breath, but filleth me with bitterness.

19If the question is strength, look, he is the strong one. If the question is justice, who can set a court date and make him appear?

19If I speak of strength, lo, he is strong: and if of judgment, who shall set me a time to plead?

Note"Set me a time to plead" is the technical act of summoning a defendant and fixing a court date. Job's complaint is procedural: there is no officer with standing to compel God to appear.

20If I argue that I am innocent, my own mouth would condemn me. If I say I am blameless, it would prove me guilty.

20If I justify myself, mine own mouth shall condemn me: if I say, I am perfect, it shall also prove me perverse.

Note"Perfect" in the King James does not mean sinless. It translates a word meaning whole, sound, of one piece, blameless in the sense that no charge sticks. The same word carries through verses 21 and 22.

21Even if I am blameless, I do not care about myself. I hate my own life.

21Though I were perfect, yet would I not know my soul: I would despise my life.

NoteThe middle clause is obscure in Hebrew. "I would not know my soul" has been read as "I do not know myself," "I have no concern for myself," and "I do not care what happens to me." The rendering picks one; the others remain possible.

22It is all the same. That is why I say it: God destroys the blameless and the wicked alike.

22This is one thing, therefore I said it, He destroyeth the perfect and the wicked.

23When a sudden disaster kills people, he laughs at the despair of those who did nothing wrong.

23If the scourge slay suddenly, he will laugh at the trial of the innocent.

NoteA "scourge" is a whip, used here for a disaster that sweeps through and kills without picking its victims, plague, war, flood. The word translated "trial" means the melting away of courage, the collapse of the people it strikes.

24The earth is handed over to wicked people. He covers the eyes of its judges. If he is not the one doing this, then who is?

24The earth is given into the hand of the wicked: he covereth the faces of the judges thereof; if not, where, and who is he?

NoteCovering a judge's face means blindfolding him so that he cannot see the case in front of him, the reverse of the blindfold that later stood for impartiality. Here it means justice is not being done because those who should see have been blinded.

25My days go by faster than a running messenger. They rush away and never see anything good.

25Now my days are swifter than a post: they flee away, they see no good.

NoteA "post" was a professional royal courier who ran messages in relays; such runners were the fastest thing anyone in that world had seen move overland.

26They slip past like fast boats made of reeds, like an eagle diving on its prey.

26They are passed away as the swift ships: as the eagle that hasteth to the prey.

NoteThe Hebrew is "ships of papyrus", light skiffs made of bundled reeds, used on the Nile, far quicker than a wooden boat. The bird is a nesher, which covers both the eagle and the griffon vulture.

27If I say to myself, 'I will forget my complaint, I will stop looking so sad, I will cheer myself up,'

27If I say, I will forget my complaint, I will leave off my heaviness, and comfort myself:

28I am still afraid of all my pain, because I know you will not treat me as innocent.

28I am afraid of all my sorrows, I know that thou wilt not hold me innocent.

NoteJob has been speaking about God in the third person; here he turns and addresses him directly as "you," and keeps doing so through verse 31. "Hold me innocent" is the courtroom term for an acquittal.

29If I am going to be counted guilty anyway, why should I wear myself out for nothing?

29If I be wicked, why then labour I in vain?

30Even if I washed myself with snow water and scrubbed my hands as clean as they could ever be,

30If I wash myself with snow water, and make my hands never so clean;

NoteThe second cleaning agent is lye, potash leached from plant ash, the strongest soap available and harsh enough to burn the skin. Snow water was thought of as the purest water there was. Job is naming the two most thorough cleansers he knows.

31you would still throw me into a filthy pit, and even my own clothes would find me disgusting.

31Yet shalt thou plunge me in the ditch, and mine own clothes shall abhor me.

NoteThe word behind "ditch" means a pit, and elsewhere a grave or a cesspit. The last clause reverses the normal relation between a person and his clothes: instead of his filth soiling them, the garments themselves recoil from the man wearing them.

32For he is not a man like me, so that I could answer him, or the two of us could go to court together.

32For he is not a man, as I am, that I should answer him, and we should come together in judgment.

33And there is no one to stand between us, no one who could lay a hand on both of us at once.

33Neither is there any daysman betwixt us, that might lay his hand upon us both.

NoteA "daysman" in 1611 English was an arbitrator, someone appointed to hear a dispute on an agreed day. Laying a hand on both parties was the gesture that showed he had authority over each of them and could hold them both to his ruling. Job's point is that between a human and God no such third party exists. Some Hebrew manuscripts read "would that there were an arbitrator" rather than "there is not."

34Let him take his rod away from me, and let the terror of him stop frightening me.

34Let him take his rod away from me, and let not his fear terrify me:

NoteThe rod is the stick a king, a master or a father used for beating, an instrument of punishment held by someone with the right to use it, not a walking staff.

35Then I would speak up without being afraid of him. But that is not how things are for me."

35Then would I speak, and not fear him; but it is not so with me.

NoteThe last clause is difficult in Hebrew; it reads roughly "for I am not so in myself." It has been taken as "but that is not how things stand with me," "but I am not like that," and "but I am left to myself." The uncertainty is in the text, not in the translation.