Job 9:14 · Bible study
Job 9:14 Commentary: Humility Before an Unanswerable God?
Hebrew · 10 what the commentators say
Meaning in one sentence
Explore Job 9:14: Is Job's admission of inability to answer God proper humility or despair? Original language, commentary, and pastoral insight.
Research Summary
- Meaning: Job declares he cannot present a legal case before God because of God's overwhelming power and his own frailty.
- Key words: 'answer' (עָנָה), Qal imperfect with object suffix, indicating a contemplated but impossible response; 'choose' (בָּחַר), deliberate selection of words that still falls short.
- Main debate: Is this proper humility or despairing resignation? Interpreters differ on whether Job's tone is reverent or resentful.
- Theological theme: The chasm between Creator and creature, and the necessity of a mediator for any true relationship with God.
- Best use: A humility check before God; also a bridge to the gospel's answer, the mediator Job longed for has come in Christ.
Translation Comparison
BSB Berean Standard Bible 2020
How then can I answer Him or choose my arguments against Him?
WEB World English Bible 2000
How much less will I answer him, and choose my words to argue with him?
KJV King James Version 1769
How much less shall I answer him, and choose out my words to reason with him?
ASV American Standard Version 1901
How much less shall I answer him, And choose out my words to reason with him?
YLT Young's Literal Translation 1898
How much less do I--I answer Him? Choose out my words with Him?
Darby Darby Bible 1890
How much less shall I answer him, choose out my words [to strive] with him?
Douay-Rheims Douay-Rheims Bible 1899
What am I then, that I should answer him, and have words with him?
Translations in other languages (10 available)
¿ Cuánto menos le responderé yo, y hablaré con él palabras estudiadas?
Como poderia eu lhe responder, e escolher minhas palavras contra ele?
Et moi, comment lui répondre?
Wie sollte ich denn ihm antworten und Worte finden gegen ihn?
Hoeveel te min zal ik Hem antwoorden, en mijn woorden uitkiezen tegen Hem?
E io, come farei a rispondergli, a sceglier le mie parole per discuter con lui?
Jakoż mu ja tedy odpowiem? Jakie słowa obiorę przeciwko niemu?
Тем более могу ли я отвечать Ему и приискивать себе слова пред Ним?
既是 這樣，我 怎敢回答他，怎敢選擇 言語 與他辯論呢？
How much less may I give an answer to him, using the right words in argument with him?
Verse in Context
Original Language (Biblical Hebrew)
Old Testament · Biblical Hebrew · Job 9:14
Source: STEPBible TAGNT/TEHB (CC-BY 4.0). Click or tap a morphology code to see the full parsing.
Scholars' Consensus
Commentators agree that in Job 9:14, Job acknowledges his complete inability to mount a legal case before God. The verbs are Qal imperfects: I will answer him and I will choose my words, actions Job contemplates but deems impossible. The particle אַף-כִּי (aph-ki) builds an argument from the greater to the lesser: if the mightiest forces in the universe bow before God, how much less can a frail human contend with Him?
Barnes and Gill both stress the phrase 'choose out my words' as indicating that Job would need the utmost care and precision in his speech, but even that would fail before God's overwhelming power. Matthew Henry sees Job's silence as proper humility, a creature acknowledging his place. Cambridge Bible notes that the terror of God's majesty would destroy any calm needed for a legal plea. Wesley summarizes: 'Since no creature can resist his power, and no man can comprehend his counsels and ways, how can I contend with him?'
The consensus thus identifies a recognition of human limitation. The main disagreement is whether this recognition is healthy submission or a despairing view that God is unapproachably hostile. That tension is the verse's driving question.
How settled is the interpretation?
Interpretive difficulty: Medium
Main views:
- Proper humility: Job's words reflect a biblical fear of the Lord (Job 9:4; Proverbs 1:7). He is not accusing God but confessing his own creatureliness.
- Despairing view: Job's context of suffering and his later complaints (Job 10:1-2) suggest his inability to answer God stems from a sense that God is unfair — a God he cannot reach or reason with.
What is clear: Job asserts he cannot successfully contend with God in a legal dispute; the gap between divine power and human frailty is unbridgeable from the human side alone.
What Scholars Agree and Debate
| Topic | Agreed | Debated |
|---|---|---|
| Nature of Job's humility | Job acknowledges that God's power is infinitely greater than his own. | Is this a proper, worshipful recognition (Matthew Henry, Gill) or does it reveal a bitter view of God as unapproachable and arbitrary (some modern readers)? |
| Whether God is approachable | Job feels he cannot approach God as an equal in a legal dispute. | Some traditions (e.g., Reformed) see this as a permanent truth about the Creator-creature distinction. Others (e.g., some Wesleyan or Pentecostal readings) emphasize that through Christ, believers have bold access to God's throne, and Job's lament is limited by his lack of full revelation. |
| Role of a mediator | The passage implicitly longs for someone to stand between God and Job. | Roman Catholic and Orthodox traditions connect this to the intercession of saints and the priesthood. Protestant traditions focus on Christ alone as the one mediator, with no human or angelic intermediary. |
Historical & Cultural Context
Job 9 is part of Job's first cycle of speeches in reply to his friend Bildad (Job 8). Bildad had argued that God is just and therefore Job's suffering must be due to sin. Job responds not by claiming perfection, but by describing God's power as so vast that a legal dispute is futile.
The surrounding verses paint a picture of God as a hidden, sovereign force: He 'goes by me, and I don't see him' (9:11); He 'snatches away' without explanation (9:12); the 'helpers of Rahab' stoop under Him (9:13). Rahab is likely a mythological sea-monster or a symbol of rebellious pride, possibly Egypt. Keil and Delitzsch note that 'Rahab' appears elsewhere as a proper name for Egypt (Psalm 87:4) and as a sea-monster (Isaiah 51:9). The point is that even the most powerful earthly or cosmic forces, whether Egyptian might or primordial chaos, are subdued by God. If they cannot stand, how can Job?
Job's language draws on the legal courtroom. Words like 'answer' (עָנָה), 'choose' (בָּחַר), and 'argue/reason' (רִיב) belong to the vocabulary of a lawsuit. Job feels he has been summoned to court but has no hope of winning. Yet he does not abandon the legal framework entirely, later he cries out for an 'umpire' or 'daysman' (9:33), showing that his desire for a mediator is born from this very sense of cosmic inequality.
Ancient Near Eastern texts also depict humans appealing to a high god for justice, often with fear that the god is too great to be approached. Job's speech reflects that cultural assumption, but with a personal anguish that makes it more than a theological abstraction. He is not merely stating a fact; he is expressing his lived experience of a God who seems both all-powerful and indifferent.
Textual Notes
Reception History
Preaching This Verse
Three-point outline
- The Impossibility of Contending with God. Job argues from the greater to the lesser: if the 'helpers of Rahab' bow under God, how much less can I answer Him? This removes self-reliance as a posture before God.
- The Necessity of Careful Words. 'Choose out my words' shows that even our best reasoning fails before God. Our speech must be humble, not combative.
- The Cry for a Mediator. Job's admission sets the stage for his longing for someone to stand between him and God (v.33). This points forward to Christ as the one Mediator who can lay his hand on both.
Five-point outline
- God's Incomprehensible Power (vv.10, 13), He does great things past finding out.
- Our Inability to Answer (v.14), We cannot reply to His charges.
- The Futility of Self-Justification (vv.15, 20), Even if righteous, Job cannot convince God.
- The Terror of Facing God Alone (vv.21, 31), Without a mediator, judgment is overwhelming.
- The Hope of an Advocate (vv.32, 35), Job wishes for an arbiter; the gospel provides one.
Illustration hooks
- A child arguing with a parent over an allowance decision. The child feels the rule is unfair but quickly realises the parent holds all the resources and authority. Arguing seems both necessary and hopeless.
- Standing before a high-court judge without a lawyer. You want to present your case, but every legal term you know seems amateurish. The judge's authority dwarfs your speech.
- Trying to repair a relationship where trust is broken. You want to 'reason' with the other person, but the history of hurt means any words you choose feel inadequate or are misheard.
Questions your congregation is asking
- Is it wrong to question God when life feels unfair?
- If God is so powerful that I can't argue with Him, how can I pray honestly about my pain?
- Does admitting I can't answer God mean I should stop trying to understand my suffering?
Leading a Discussion
Job's words in 9:14 sit in the middle of a longer argument about whether a human being can ever enter a legal dispute with God. His conclusion is sobering, but the very fact that he keeps speaking shows he hasn't given up. This session invites your group to sit with the tension between Job's honesty and his fear.
Discussion questions
- Observation: Read Job 9:1, 14. What reasons does Job give for why he 'cannot answer' God? List them from the text.
- Interpretation: Why does Job talk about 'choosing out words' so carefully? How does that reflect his view of both God and himself?
- Interpretation: Compare Job 9:14 with Job 23:4, 7, where Job says he would 'fill my mouth with arguments.' Is this a contradiction, or a shift in mood? What does it suggest about Job's faith?
- Interpretation: Some see Job's words as humble faith; others see despair. What evidence from the passage supports each reading?
- Application: When has your own life left you feeling like you 'cannot answer' God? How did you handle that silence?
- Application: Job longs for a 'daysman' (v.33). How does the New Testament's teaching about Christ as mediator address the problem Job names here? (1 Timothy 2:5)
- Application: This passage shows a person being brutally honest with God. How does that honesty itself become a form of prayer, even when the content is complaint?
Word Study
The key original-language words in this verse. Select any word for its full lexicon entry — meaning, every occurrence in Scripture, and related words.
Cross-References
Source: Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (TSK, public domain)
| I Kings 8:27 | But will God in very deed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens can’t contain you; how much less this house that I have built! |
| Job 4:19 | How much more those who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, who are crushed before the moth! |
| Job 9:3 | If he is pleased to contend with him, he can’t answer him one time in a thousand. |
| Job 11:4 | For you say, ‘My doctrine is pure. I am clean in your eyes.’ |
| Job 11:5 | But oh that God would speak, and open his lips against you, |
| Job 23:4 | I would set my cause in order before him, and fill my mouth with arguments. |
| Job 23:7 | There the upright might reason with him, so I should be delivered forever from my judge. |
| Job 25:6 | How much less man, who is a worm, and the son of man, who is a worm!” |
Interlinear and lexical data from STEPBible (CC BY 4.0). Cross-reference data from OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0). Commentaries are public domain.
For personal reflection
Read the devotional page — prayer, application, and "for families"
What the Commentators Say
10 public-domain commentaries, condensed into plain language.
Adam Clarke's Commentary Methodist/Wesleyan 1826
Clarke notes the human being cannot argue with God because God is both the law giver and the judge. This shows the limits of human speech when facing God.
Barnes' Notes on the Bible Protestant 1832
Barnes offers a distinctive translation of this verse. While most interpreters think Job admits he cannot answer God at all, Barnes understands Job to say he would choose his words with the utmost care. For Barnes, Job’s deep reverence for God leads him to speak with careful attention, not to refuse to answer.
Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges Anglican 1880
Job realizes he lacks the composure needed to speak carefully to God because of God’s great power. He believes he cannot present a proper plea given such fear.
Geneva Bible Notes Reformed 1599
The Geneva Notes stress that no human can prepare an adequate response or even find the right words to argue a case before God. The rhetorical question underscores our total inability to stand on equal footing with the Almighty in any debate or judgment.
Gill's Exposition of the Bible Baptist 1748
Gill stresses that Job sees himself as utterly powerless before God, who is invisible, sovereign, and able to strike from any side without warning. No skill in choosing words or strength of reasoning could influence God’s purposes or alter His actions, so Job concludes silence or humble supplication is his only proper response.
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Commentary Protestant 1871
Jamieson Fausset Brown notes the weak man must speak carefully when addressing God because even the mighty ones lower themselves before Him. He says one should choose words thoughtfully when reasoning with the Almighty.
Keil & Delitzsch OT Commentary Protestant 1876
Keil-Delitzsch interprets the "helpers of Rahab" as a mythological allusion to titanic sea-monsters or rebellious powers that God subdues. Job, comparing himself to these mighty but vanquished beings, argues that he is even less able to contend with God. The phrase underscores God's absolute, invisible, and irresistible sovereignty over all opposition.
Lange's Commentary Reformed 1857
Lange observes that Job here turns the friends' own arguments about God's purity and justice against them. Job concedes he cannot answer or reason with God, but he twists that concession into a bitter protest against what he sees as God's crushing, arbitrary omnipotence that allows no reply from a mortal.
Matthew Henry's Commentary Reformed/Presbyterian 1710
Henry sees Job’s refusal to argue with God as coming from his awareness that his own righteousness is imperfect and that God is displeased with him. He believes Job despises his life rather than daring to speak against the Almighty.
Wesley's Explanatory Notes Methodist/Wesleyan 1754
Wesley emphasizes the double impossibility behind the question: no creature can resist God's power, and no human mind can grasp His purposes. For Wesley, the point is not merely humility but a frank admission that we have no ground to argue or plead a case before God.