Your wickedness may hurt a man as you are, and your righteousness may profit a son of man.
Parallel Translations
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Your wickedness may hurt a man as you are, and your righteousness may profit a son of man.
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Thy wickedness may hurt a man as thou art; and thy righteousness may profit the son of man.
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Thy wickedness concerneth a man as thou art; and thy righteousness a son of man.
Cross-references (13)
Passages linked to Job 35:8 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Genesis 12:2 I will make of you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great. You will be a blessing.
- Genesis 18:24-33 What if there are fifty righteous within the city? Will you consume and not spare the place for the fifty righteous who are in it? May it be far from you to do things like that, to kill the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous should be like the wicked. May that be far from you. Shouldn’t the Judge of all the earth do right?” Yahweh said, “If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare the whole place for their sake.” Abraham answered, “See now, I have taken it on myself to speak to the Lord, although I am dust and ashes. What if there will lack five of the fifty righteous? Will you destroy all the city for lack of five?” He said, “I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there.” He spoke to him yet again, and said, “What if there are forty found there?” He said, “I will not do it for the forty’s sake.” He said, “Oh don’t let the Lord be angry, and I will speak. What if there are thirty found there?” He said, “I will not do it if I find thirty there.” He said, “See now, I have taken it on myself to speak to the Lord. What if there are twenty found there?” He said, “I will not destroy it for the twenty’s sake.” He said, “Oh don’t let the Lord be angry, and I will speak just once more. What if ten are found there?” He said, “I will not destroy it for the ten’s sake.” Yahweh went his way, as soon as he had finished communing with Abraham, and Abraham returned to his place.
- Genesis 19:29 When God destroyed the cities of the plain, God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the middle of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in which Lot lived.
- Joshua 7:1-5 But the children of Israel committed a trespass in the devoted things; for Achan, the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took some of the devoted things. Therefore Yahweh’s anger burned against the children of Israel. Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai, which is beside Beth Aven, on the east side of Bethel, and spoke to them, saying, “Go up and spy out the land.” The men went up and spied out Ai. They returned to Joshua, and said to him, “Don’t let all the people go up, but let about two or three thousand men go up and strike Ai. Don’t make all the people to toil there, for there are only a few of them.” So about three thousand men of the people went up there, and they fled before the men of Ai. The men of Ai struck about thirty-six men of them. They chased them from before the gate even to Shebarim, and struck them at the descent. The hearts of the people melted, and became like water.
- Joshua 22:20 Didn’t Achan the son of Zerah commit a trespass in the devoted thing, and wrath fell on all the congregation of Israel? That man didn’t perish alone in his iniquity.’ ”
- Job 42:8 Now therefore, take to yourselves seven bulls and seven rams, and go to my servant Job, and offer up for yourselves a burnt offering; and my servant Job shall pray for you, for I will accept him, that I not deal with you according to your folly. For you have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job has.”
- Psalms 106:23 Therefore he said that he would destroy them, had Moses, his chosen, not stood before him in the breach, to turn away his wrath, so that he wouldn’t destroy them.
- Psalms 106:30 Then Phinehas stood up and executed judgment, so the plague was stopped.
- Ecclesiastes 9:18 Wisdom is better than weapons of war; but one sinner destroys much good.
- Ezekiel 22:30 “I sought for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I would not destroy it; but I found no one.
- Jonah 1:12 He said to them, “Take me up, and throw me into the sea. Then the sea will be calm for you; for I know that because of me this great storm is on you.”
- Acts 27:24 saying, ‘Don’t be afraid, Paul. You must stand before Caesar. Behold, God has granted you all those who sail with you.’
- Hebrews 11:7 By faith, Noah, being warned about things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared a ship for the saving of his house, through which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (7 sources)
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John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Job 35:8 Thy wickedness [may hurt] a man as…
Job 35:8 Thy wickedness [may hurt] a man as thou [art]; and thy righteousness [may profit] the son of man.
Ver. 8. Thy wickedness may hurt a man as thou art] Wicked men are many ways mischievous to others; and have much to answer for their other men’s sins. How many are undone by their murders, adulteries, robberies, false testimonies, blasphemies, and other rotten speeches, to the corrupting of good manners! &c. What hurt is done daily by the devil’s factors, to men’s souls, bodies, names, estates! Besides that they betray the land wherein they live into the hands of divine justice, while they do wickedly with both hands earnestly, Mic 7:3; that I speak not of the manifold miseries they pull upon themselves.
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And thy righteousness may profit the son of man] Thyself and others; for the just liveth by his own faith; he maketh a living of it, and a good one too. And as for his charity, it is the mother of all manner of good works, whereof others have the benefit. Papists, and some as silly, have shrunk up charity to a hand’s breadth, to giving of alms. But besides that, a good man draweth out, not only his sheaf, but his soul to the hungry. He also warneth the unruly, comforteth the feeble-minded, supporteth the weak, and tradeth all his talents for the good of others, 1Th 5:14. He is a common blessing to all that are about him. As Plutarch said of the neighbouring villages of Rome, in Numa’s time, That sucking in the air of that city, they breathed δικαιοσυνην, righteousness; so may it be said of the city of God, and her citizens.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain If God were such a one as thou art,…
If God were such a one as thou art, he might have benefit or hurt by thine actions; but being an infinite, independent, and self-sufficient Being, he is far exalted above all thy good or evil.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 8. Thy wickedness may hurt] It is better…
Verse 8. Thy wickedness may hurt] It is better to translate this literally:
To a man like thyself is thy wickedness:
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And to the son of man, thy righteousness:
That is: -
Thou mayest injure thyself and others by thy wickedness,
And thou mayest benefit both by thy righteousness;
But God thou canst neither hurt nor profit.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain Thy wickedness may hurt a Man as thou art…
Thy wickedness may hurt a Man as thou art - That is, it may injure him, but not God. He is too far exalted above man, and too independent of man in his sources of happiness, to be affected by what he can do. The object of the whole passage Job 35:6-8 is, to show that God is independent of people, and is not governed in his dealings with them on the principles which regulate their conduct with each other. One man may be greatly benefited by the conduct of another, and may feel under obligation to reward him for it; or he maybe greatly injured in his person, property, or reputation, by another, and will endeavor to avenge himself. But nothing of this kind can happen to God. If he rewards, therefore, it must be of his grace and mercy, not because he is laid under obligation; if he inflicts chastisement, it must be because people deserve it, and not because God has been injured. In this reasoning Elihu undoubtedly refers to Job, whom he regards as having urged a “claim” to a different kind of treatment, because he supposed that he “deserved” it. The general principle of Elihu is clearly correct, that God is entirely independent of human beings; that neither our good nor evil conduct can effect his happiness, and that consequently his dealings with us are those of impartial justice.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 8. Thy wickedness… son of man — The original…
8. Thy wickedness… son of man — The original reads more tersely, For a man like thyself is thy wickedness; and for a son of man thy righteousness. Man, and not God, loses or gains according as man is wicked or righteous. The comment of Clement, in one of his homilies, is befitting: “Him they profit nothing, but they save themselves: him they injure not, but they are destroyed.”
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 8. The verse reads literally: thy wickedness is to…
8. The verse reads literally: thy wickedness is to (touches, affects) a man as thou art, and thy righteousness is to one of mankind, i. e. thyself who art a man; for it cannot touch God who is exalted above such influence.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Thy wickedness may hurt a man as thou art;…
Thy wickedness may hurt a man as thou art; and thy righteousness may profit the son (rather, a son) of man. Job must not think, Elihu means, that, because his good actions benefit and his bad actions injure his fellow men, therefore they must also in the one case injure and in the other benefit God. The cases are not parallel. God is too remote, too powerful, too great, to be touched by his actions. Job has done wrong, therefore, to expect that God would necessarily reward his righteousness by prosper us, happy life, and worse to complain because his expectations have been disappointed. It is of his mere spontaneous goodness and bounty that God rewards the godly.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.