Job 25:4
Translations
King James Version (KJV)
How then can man be justified with God? or how can he be clean that is born of a woman?
American King James Version (AKJV)
How then can man be justified with God? or how can he be clean that is born of a woman?
American Standard Version (ASV)
How then can man be just with God? Or how can he be clean that is born of a woman?
Basic English Translation (BBE)
How then is it possible for man to be upright before God? or how may he be clean who is a son of woman?
Webster's Revision
How then can man be justified with God? or how can he be clean that is born of a woman?
World English Bible
How then can man be just with God? Or how can he who is born of a woman be clean?
English Revised Version (ERV)
How then can man be just with God? or how can he be clean that is born of a woman?
Clarke's Job 25:4 Bible Commentary
How then can man be justified? - Or, ונה umah, With what, shall a man be justified with God? Though this is no conclusion from Bildad's premises, yet the question is of the highest importance to man. Neither Bildad nor any of his fellows could answer it; the doctrine of redemption through the blood of the cross was then known only through types and shadows. We who live in the Gospel dispensation, can readily answer the question, With what shall miserable man (אנוש enosh) be justified with God? - Ans. By bringing forward, by faith, to the throne of the Divine justice, the sacrificial offering of the Lord Jesus Christ; and confiding absolutely in it, as being a full, sufficient, and complete atonement and sacrifice for his sins, and for the salvation of a lost world. How, or with what (ומה umah) shall he be clean that is born of a woman? - Ans. By receiving that grace or heavenly influence communicated by the power and energy of the eternal Spirit applying to the heart the efficacy of that blood which cleanses from all unrighteousness. This, and this only, is the way in which a sinner, when truly penitent, can be justified before God: and in which a believer, convinced of indwelling sin, can be sanctified and cleansed from all unrighteousness. This is the only means of justification and sanctification, without which there can be no glorification. And these two great works, which constitute the whole of salvation, have been procured for a lost world by the incarnation, passion, death, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, who was delivered for our offenses, and rose again for our justification; to whom be glory and dominion now and for evermore, Amen!
Barnes's Job 25:4 Bible Commentary
How then can man be justified with God? - see Job 4:17-18; Job 15:15-16. Instead of meeting the facts to which Job had appealed, all that Bildad could now do was to repeat what had been said before. It shows that he felt himself unable to dispose of the argument, and yet that he was not willing to confess that he was vanquished.
Or how can he be clean? - This sentiment had been expressed by Job himself, Job 14:4. Perhaps Bildad meant now to adopt it as undoubted truth, and to throw it back upon Job as worthy of his special attention. It has no bearing on the arguments which Job had advanced, and is utterly irrelevant except as Bildad supposed that the course of argument maintained by Job implied that he supposed himself to be pure.
Wesley's Job 25:4 Bible Commentary
25:4 Man - The word signifies man that is miserable, which supposes him to be sinful; and shall such a creature quarrel with that dominion of God, to which the sinless, and happy, and glorious angels submit?God - Before God's tribunal, to which thou dost so boldly appeal.