Job 10 5

Job 10:5 kjv

Are thy days as the days of man? are thy years as man's days,

Job 10:5 nkjv

Are Your days like the days of a mortal man? Are Your years like the days of a mighty man,

Job 10:5 niv

Are your days like those of a mortal or your years like those of a strong man,

Job 10:5 esv

Are your days as the days of man, or your years as a man's years,

Job 10:5 nlt

Is your lifetime only as long as ours?
Is your life so short

Job 10 verses

Job 10 5 Meaning

Job 10:5 expresses Job's anguished questioning of God's nature and actions. He rhetorically asks if God perceives time and conducts judgment within the limitations of human existence. Job feels as though God is meticulously investigating his supposed iniquity with an urgency or process that suggests a finite perspective, contrasting sharply with the expectation of an eternal and omniscient deity. He is projecting human limitations onto God, wondering if divine wisdom and power operate within the constraints of fleeting human life or with the exertion of a limited man.

Job 10 5 Context

Job 10 is part of Job's second discourse (chapters 9-10) following his friends' accusations. Having expressed despair in chapter 9, Job directly addresses God in chapter 10. His lament oscillates between expressing a desire for death (vv. 1-2) and questioning God's motives and methods (vv. 3-7). Verse 5 fits squarely into this questioning, as Job, reeling from intense suffering, cannot reconcile God's immense power and supposed knowledge with the protracted, agonizing way God seems to be dealing with him. Job feels God is "searching" out his iniquity (v. 6), suggesting a process that is time-bound, laborious, and limited—a profoundly human way of operating. This contrasts sharply with God's actual nature, as understood biblically, which is eternal, omniscient, and immediately aware of all things without the need for investigative "time."

Job 10 5 Word analysis

• Are Your days: (Hebrew: הֲיָמֶיךָ, ha-yam-me-kha). The initial "ha" is an interrogative particle, forming a rhetorical question, expressing Job's intense doubt and frustration. "Yammim" (days) refers to duration, periods of time. Job questions whether God's experience of time is like that of humanity. This implies a profound misunderstanding or a desperate projection of human limitation onto the divine.
• as the days: (Hebrew: כִּימֵי, ki-ye-mei). "Ki" means "like" or "as," drawing a direct comparison. This phrase underlines the analogy Job is making, juxtaposing divine eternity with human temporality.
• of a mortal man: (Hebrew: אֱנוֹשׁ, enosh). This term for man (as opposed to 'ish, referring to man as strong or prominent) emphasizes human weakness, frailty, and transient nature. It highlights mortality, highlighting the brief and fragile nature of human existence. Job asks if the infinite God perceives time with such a finite and perishable understanding.
• Are Your years: (Hebrew: הַשְׁנוֹתֶיךָ, ha-sh'no-tei-kha). "Shanim" (years) serves as a poetic parallel to "days," intensifying the question about God's duration and His relationship to temporal boundaries.
• as the years: (Hebrew: כִּשְׁנוֹת, ki-sh'not). Again, "ki" emphasizes the direct comparison.
• of a mighty man: (Hebrew: גֶּבֶר, gever). This term typically denotes a strong man, a powerful person, a hero, or one capable of vigorous action or even struggle. Unlike enosh, it highlights strength or endurance. Job uses this to ask if God's actions are driven by a human-like striving, diligence, or perhaps even aggression, which still falls within finite human capacity, not infinite divine ease. It suggests God is laboring or striving to find fault, like a human diligently seeking something within a limited lifespan.

• "Are Your days as the days of a mortal man? Are Your years as the years of a mighty man?": This couplet uses synonymous parallelism, repeating the same concept with different terms to heighten emphasis. The rhetorical questions demonstrate Job's profound agony and his perception that God's justice or investigation feels burdensome and constrained, mirroring human, rather than divine, limitations. Job's mind, overwhelmed by suffering, attributes finite qualities—weakness (enosh) and striving/force (gever)—to the infinite, eternal God. He feels that God is taking an unnaturally long and difficult time to 'find' sin, rather than acting with instant omniscience.

Job 10 5 Bonus section

• This verse reveals the struggle of humanity to grasp divine eternity and omniscience when faced with present, seemingly endless suffering. Job's questions are born of intense personal agony, not a developed theological critique of God's attributes.
• Job projects anthropomorphic characteristics onto God, seeing Him as an individual working against a clock, striving, or constrained by human-like limits. This is a common human tendency to define the unknown and immense in terms of the known and limited.
• The rhetorical nature of the question emphasizes the implicit expectation of Job: that God is not like a man. His very questioning, though born of despair, carries a whisper of God's true, unlimited nature, making His perceived "human-like" action all the more bewildering to Job.
• This passage highlights the critical biblical concept of God's transcendence and His operation outside of human time and spatial dimensions, which stands in contrast to common Ancient Near Eastern views of deities that often mimicked human limitations and vices.

Job 10 5 Commentary

In Job 10:5, Job’s poignant questioning of God's temporality arises from his acute suffering and his inability to reconcile it with his understanding of an all-powerful, all-knowing, and just God. He views God's supposed scrutiny of his life as laborious and drawn-out, akin to a human court case limited by time and the judge’s lifespan. This implicitly denies God's timelessness, omniscient knowledge, and inherent capacity to know all things instantly and eternally without the need for a 'search'. Job struggles with the paradox of an eternal God who seems to operate under the same constraints and painstaking efforts as frail, mortal humans. His questions, though theologically flawed as reflections of God's true nature, perfectly illustrate the deep distress and misunderstanding that intense pain can inflict on faith.