Job 7:17–18
The NET BibleOther versions
English
- NET The NET Bible
- DARBY 1890 Darby Bible
- ASV American Standard Version
- AV 1873 The Cambridge Paragraph Bible of the Authorized English Version
- CSB Christian Standard Bible
- D-R Douay-Rheims Bible
- ESV English Standard Version
- GW GOD’S WORD Translation
- GNB Good News Translation
- HCSB The Holman Christian Standard Bible
- KJV 1900 King James Version
- LSB Legacy Standard Bible
- LEB The Lexham English Bible
- MSG The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language
- NASB95 New American Standard Bible (1995)
- NCV New Century Version
- NIrV New International Reader’s Version (1998)
- NIV New International Version (2011)
- NKJV The New King James Version
- NLT New Living Translation
- NRSVue New Revised Standard Version: Updated Edition
- RSV The Revised Standard Version
- RSVCE The Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition
- YLT Young’s Literal Translation
Arabic
Czech
French
German
Hebrew
Hungarian
Italian
Korean
Latin
Portuguese
Russian
Simplified Chinese
Spanish
Traditional Chinese
Insignificance of Humans
7:17“What is mankind59 that you make so much of them,60
and that you pay attention61 to them?
7:18And that you visit62 them every morning,
Footnotes
- 59 The verse is a rhetorical question; it is intended to mean that man is too little for God to be making so much over him in all this.
- 60 The Piel verb is a factitive meaning “to magnify.” The English word “magnify” might not be the best translation here, for God, according to Job, is focusing inordinately on him. It means to magnify in thought, appreciate, think highly of. God, Job argues, is making too much of mankind by devoting so much bad attention on them.
- 61 The expression “set your heart on” means “concentrate your mind on” or “pay attention to.”
- 62 The verb פָּקַד (paqad) is a very common one in the Bible; while it is frequently translated “visit,” the “visit” is never comparable to a social call. When God “visits” people it always means a divine intervention for blessing or cursing—but the visit always changes the destiny of the one visited. Here Job is amazed that God Almighty would be so involved in the life of mere human beings.
- 63 Now the verb “to test” is introduced and gives further explanation to the purpose of the “visit” in the parallel line (see the same parallelism in Ps 17:3). The verb בָּחַן (bakhan) has to do with passing things through the fire or the crucible to purify the metal (see Job 23:10; Zech 13:3); metaphorically it means “to examine carefully” and “to purify by testing.”
- 64 The amazing thing is the regularity of the testing. Job is at first amazed that God would visit him; but even more is he amazed that God is testing him every moment. The employment of a chiasm with the two temporal adverbial phrases as the central elements emphasizes the regularity.
The NET Bible First Edition, Copyright 1996-2005 by Biblical Studies Press
In other versions
ESVEnglish Standard Version
What is man, that you make so much of him,
and that you set your heart on him,
visit him every morning
and test him every moment?
Copyright 2001 Crossway Bibles
NIVNew International Version (2011)
“What is mankind that you make so much of them,
that you give them so much attention,
that you examine them every morning
and test them every moment?
Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 Biblica, Inc.
CSBChristian Standard Bible
What is a mere human, that you think so highly of him
and pay so much attention to him?
You inspect him every morning,
and put him to the test every moment.
Copyright 2017 Holman Bible Publishers
NLTNew Living Translation
“What are people, that you should make so much of us,
that you should think of us so often?
For you examine us every morning
and test us every moment.
Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers. All rights reserved.
LEBThe Lexham English Bible
“What is a human being that you make him great
and that you fix your mind on him,
so that you visit him every morning,
you test him every moment?
Copyright 2012 Lexham Press
KJV 1900King James Version
What is man, that thou shouldest magnify him?
And that thou shouldest set thine heart upon him?
And that thou shouldest visit him every morning,
And try him every moment?
Public Domain