What Does Job 9:3 Mean in the King James?
If he will contend with him, he cannot answer him one of a thousand.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The Hebrew pictures a legal case so uneven that the human voice cannot answer even one point in a thousand.
THE MEANING
The verse names a radical imbalance: when you contend with God, you cannot answer even one in a thousand. The limit is not merely a weak argument; the scale of the encounter exceeds your capacity to respond.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that enough intelligence or eloquence can make the human case fully answerable before God.
THE ROOT
לָרִיב
lā-rîv
GROWS FROM
ריב
To contend, dispute, or plead a case.
English “contend” can sound like an ordinary disagreement, but ריב often carries the sense of a legal dispute or case. The verse describes more than a quarrel: the case is so uneven that a human cannot answer it point by point.
ALSO GROWS
rîḇ: Dispute, controversy, or case.
רִיב
This noun makes the courtroom-like force of the contention visible.
merîvāh: Quarrel or strife.
מְרִיבָה
This branch shows how the same root also names contention as conflict.
יַעֲנֶנּוּ
yaʿănennû
GROWS FROM
ענה
To answer or respond.
“answer” in this verse is yaʿănennû. The verb names the act of answering, not simply the outcome of losing an argument. The verse presents the human limit as an inability to respond adequately to the scale of the case.
ALSO GROWS
ʿānāh: He answered or responded.
עָנָה
This verb form makes clear that the root concerns an actual reply.
maʿăneh: An answer or response.
מַעֲנֶה
The noun form shows that the root also names the reply itself, the very thing the verse says is insufficient.
THE PATTERN
Human understanding cannot encompass or answer the whole counsel of God.
Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?Who hath directed the Spirit of the LORD, or being his counsellor hath taught him?For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor?THE THREAD
Behold, I am vile; what shall I answer thee? I will lay mine hand upon my mouth.Job 9:3 uses ענה (ʿānāh), “to answer or respond”; Job 40:4 uses the same root in the question, “what shall I answer thee?” The first verse names the limits of an answer, and the later verse gives that limit a physical form: a hand over the mouth.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us