Job 9:14

The Impossibility of Facing God in Court

9:14 “How much less, ¹  then, can I answer him ² 

and choose my words ³  to argue ⁴  with ⁵  him! ⁶ 

Job 9:19

9:19 If it is a matter of strength, ⁷ 

most certainly ⁸  he is the strong one!

And if it is a matter of justice,

he will say, ‘Who will summon me?’ ⁹ 

Job 12:13-16

12:13 “With God ¹⁰  are wisdom and power;

counsel and understanding are his. ¹¹ 

12:14 If ¹²  he tears down, it cannot be rebuilt;

if he imprisons a person, there is no escape. ¹³ 

12:15 If he holds back the waters, then they dry up; ¹⁴ 

if he releases them, ¹⁵  they destroy ¹⁶  the land.

12:16 With him are strength and prudence; ¹⁷ 

both the one who goes astray ¹⁸ 

and the one who misleads are his.

Job 26:12-14

26:12 By his power he stills ¹⁹  the sea;

by his wisdom he cut Rahab the great sea monster ²⁰  to pieces. ²¹ 

26:13 By his breath ²²  the skies became fair;

his hand pierced the fleeing serpent. ²³ 

26:14 Indeed, these are but the outer fringes of his ways! ²⁴ 

How faint is the whisper ²⁵  we hear of him!

But who can understand the thunder of his power?”

Job 37:23

37:23 As for the Almighty, ²⁶  we cannot attain to him!

He is great in power,

but justice ²⁷  and abundant righteousness he does not oppress.

Psalms 99:4

99:4 The king is strong;

he loves justice. ²⁸ 

You ensure that legal decisions will be made fairly; ²⁹ 

you promote justice and equity in Jacob.

Psalms 147:5

147:5 Our Lord is great and has awesome power; ³⁰ 

there is no limit to his wisdom. ³¹ 

Jeremiah 10:12

10:12 The Lord is the one who ³²  by his power made the earth.

He is the one who by his wisdom established the world.

And by his understanding he spread out the skies.

Jeremiah 32:19

32:19 You plan great things and you do mighty deeds. ³³  You see everything people do. ³⁴  You reward each of them for the way they live and for the things they do. ³⁵ 

Jeremiah 32:1

Jeremiah Buys a Field

32:1 In the tenth year that Zedekiah was ruling over Judah the Lord spoke to Jeremiah. ³⁶  That was the same as the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar.

Colossians 1:24-28

1:24 Now I rejoice in my sufferings for you, and I fill up in my physical body – for the sake of his body, the church – what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ. 1:25 I became a servant of the church according to the stewardship ³⁷  from God – given to me for you – in order to complete ³⁸  the word of God, 1:26 that is, the mystery that has been kept hidden from ages and generations, but has now been revealed to his saints. 1:27 God wanted to make known to them the glorious ³⁹  riches of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. 1:28 We proclaim him by instructing ⁴⁰  and teaching ⁴¹  all people ⁴²  with all wisdom so that we may present every person mature ⁴³  in Christ.

[9:14]  ¹ tn The construction אַף כִּי־אָנֹכִי (’af ki ’anokhi) is an expression that means either “how much more” or “how much less.” Here it has to mean “how much less,” for if powerful forces like Rahab are crushed beneath God’s feet, how could Job contend with him?

[9:14]  ² tn The imperfect verb here is to be taken with the nuance of a potential imperfect. The idea of “answer him” has a legal context, i.e., answering God in a court of law. If God is relentless in his anger toward greater powers, then Job realizes it is futile for him.

[9:14]  ³ sn In a legal controversy with God it would be essential to choose the correct words very carefully (humanly speaking); but the calmness and presence of mind to do that would be shattered by the overwhelming terror of God’s presence.

[9:14]  ⁴ tn The verb is supplied in this line.

[9:14]  ⁵ tn The preposition אִם (’im, “with”) carries the idea of “in contest with” in a number of passages (compare vv. 2, 3; 16:21).

[9:14]  ⁶ tn The LXX goes a different way after changing the first person to the third: “Oh then that he would hearken to me, or judge my cause.”

[9:19]  ⁷ tn The MT has only “if of strength.”

[9:19]  ⁸ tn “Most certainly” translates the particle הִנֵּה (hinneh).

[9:19]  ⁹ tn The question could be taken as “who will summon me?” (see Jer 49:19 and 50:44). This does not make immediate sense. Some have simply changed the suffix to “who will summon him.” If the MT is retained, then supplying something like “he will say” could make the last clause fit the whole passage. Another option is to take it as “Who will reveal it to me?” – i.e., Job could be questioning his friends’ qualifications for being God’s emissaries to bring God’s charges against him (cf. KJV, NKJV; and see 10:2 where Job uses the same verb in the Hiphil to request that God reveal what his sin has been that has led to his suffering).

[12:13]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “him”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[12:13]  ¹¹ sn A. B. Davidson (Job, 91) says, “These attributes of God’s [sic] confound and bring to nought everything bearing the same name among men.”

[12:14]  ¹² tn The use of הֵן (hen, equivalent to הִנֵּה, hinneh, “behold”) introduces a hypothetical condition.

[12:14]  ¹³ tn The verse employs antithetical ideas: “tear down” and “build up,” “imprison” and “escape.” The Niphal verbs in the sentences are potential imperfects. All of this is to say that humans cannot reverse the will of God.

[12:15]  ¹⁴ tc The LXX has a clarification: “he will dry the earth.”

[12:15]  ¹⁵ sn The verse is focusing on the two extremes of drought and flood. Both are described as being under the power of God.

[12:15]  ¹⁶ tn The verb הָפַךְ (hafakh) means “to overthrow; to destroy; to overwhelm.” It was used in Job 9:5 for “overturning” mountains. The word is used in Genesis for the destruction of Sodom.

[12:16]  ¹⁷ tn The word תּוּשִׁיָּה (tushiyyah) is here rendered “prudence.” Some object that God’s power is intended here, and so a word for power and not wisdom should be included. But v. 13 mentioned wisdom. The point is that it is God’s efficient wisdom that leads to success. One could interpret this as a metonymy of cause, the intended meaning being victory or success.

[12:16]  ¹⁸ tn The Hebrew text uses a wordplay here: שֹׁגֵג (shogeg) is “the one going astray,” i.e., the one who is unable to guard and guide his life. The second word is מַשְׁגֶּה (mashgeh), from a different but historically related root שָׁגָה (shagah), which here in the Hiphil means “the one who misleads, causes to go astray.” These two words are designed to include everybody – all are under the wisdom of God.

[26:12]  ¹⁹ tn The verb רָגַע (raga’) has developed a Semitic polarity, i.e., having totally opposite meanings. It can mean “to disturb; to stir up” or “to calm; to still.” Gordis thinks both meanings have been invoked here. But it seems more likely that “calm” fits the context better.

[26:12]  ²⁰ tn Heb “Rahab” (רָהַב), the mythical sea monster that represents the forces of chaos in ancient Near Eastern literature. In the translation the words “the great sea monster” have been supplied appositionally in order to clarify “Rahab.”

[26:12]  ²¹ sn Here again there are possible mythological allusions or polemics. The god Yam, “Sea,” was important in Ugaritic as a god of chaos. And Rahab is another name for the monster of the deep (see Job 9:13).

[26:13]  ²² tn Or “wind”; or perhaps “Spirit.” The same Hebrew word, רוּחַ (ruakh), may be translated as “wind,” “breath,” or “spirit/Spirit” depending on the context.

[26:13]  ²³ sn Here too is a reference to pagan views indirectly. The fleeing serpent was a designation for Leviathan, whom the book will simply describe as an animal, but the pagans thought to be a monster of the deep. God’s power over nature is associated with defeat of pagan gods (see further W. F. Albright, Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan; idem, BASOR 53 [1941]: 39).

[26:14]  ²⁴ tn Heb “the ends of his ways,” meaning “the fringes.”

[26:14]  ²⁵ tn Heb “how little is the word.” Here “little” means a “fraction” or an “echo.”

[37:23]  ²⁶ tn The name “Almighty” is here a casus pendens, isolating the name at the front of the sentence and resuming it with a pronoun.

[37:23]  ²⁷ tn The MT places the major disjunctive accent (the atnach) under “power,” indicating that “and justice” as a disjunctive clause starting the second half of the verse (with ESV, NASB, NIV, NLT). Ignoring the Masoretic accent, NRSV has “he is great in power and justice.”

[99:4]  ²⁸ tn Heb “and strength, a king, justice he loves.” The syntax of the Hebrew text is difficult here. The translation assumes that two affirmations are made about the king, the Lord (see v. 1, and Ps 98:6). The noun עֹז (’oz, “strength”) should probably be revocalized as the adjective עַז (’az, “strong”).

[99:4]  ²⁹ tn Heb “you establish fairness.”

[147:5]  ³⁰ tn Heb “and great of strength.”

[147:5]  ³¹ tn Heb “to his wisdom there is no counting.”

[10:12]  ³² tn The words “The Lord is” are not in the text. They are implicit from the context. They are supplied in the translation here because of the possible confusion of who the subject is due to the parenthetical address to the people of Israel in v. 11. The first two verbs are participles and should not merely be translated as the narrative past. They are predicate nominatives of an implied copula intending to contrast the Lord as the one who made the earth with the idols which did not.

[32:19]  ³³ tn Heb “[you are] great in counsel and mighty in deed.”

[32:19]  ³⁴ tn Heb “your eyes are open to the ways of the sons of men.”

[32:19]  ³⁵ tn Heb “giving to each according to his way [= behavior/conduct] and according to the fruit of his deeds.”

[32:1]  ³⁶ tn Heb “The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the eleventh year of…” See 7:1; 11:1; 18:1; 21:1; 30:1 for this same formula.

[1:25]  ³⁷ tn BDAG 697 s.v. οἰκονομία 1.b renders the term here as “divine office.”

[1:25]  ³⁸ tn See BDAG 828 s.v. πληρόω 3. The idea here seems to be that the apostle wants to “complete the word of God” in that he wants to preach it to every person in the known world (cf. Rom 15:19). See P. T. O’Brien, Colossians, Philemon (WBC), 82.

[1:27]  ³⁹ tn The genitive noun τῆς δόξης (ths doxhs) is an attributive genitive and has therefore been translated as “glorious riches.”

[1:28]  ⁴⁰ tn Or “admonishing,” or “warning.” BDAG 679 s.v. νουθετέω states, “to counsel about avoidance or cessation of an improper course of conduct,, admonish, warn, instruct.” After the participle νουθετοῦντες (nouqetounte", “instructing”) the words πάντα ἄνθρωπον (panta anqrwpon, “all men”) occur in the Greek text, but since the same phrase appears again after διδάσκοντες (didaskontes) it was omitted in translation to avoid redundancy in English.

[1:28]  ⁴¹ tn The two participles “instructing” (νουθετοῦντες, nouqetounte") and “teaching” (διδάσκοντες, didaskonte") are translated as participles of means (“by”) related to the finite verb “we proclaim” (καταγγέλλομεν, katangellomen).

[1:28]  ⁴² tn Here ἄνθρωπον (anqrwpon) is twice translated as a generic (“people” and “person”) since both men and women are clearly intended in this context.

[1:28]  ⁴³ tn Since Paul’s focus is on the present experience of the Colossians, “mature” is a better translation of τέλειον (teleion) than “perfect,” since the latter implies a future, eschatological focus.