Job 16:21
Oh, that a man might plead with God as he pleads with his neighbor!
BSB
ASV
That he would maintain the right of a man with God, And of a son of man with his neighbor!
KJV
O that one might plead for a man with God, as a man pleadeth for his neighbour!
Oh that one might plead for a man - A more correct rendering of this would be, “Oh that it might be for a man to contend with God;” that is, in a judicial controversy. It is the expression of an earnest desire to carry his cause at once before God, and to be permitted to argue it there. This desire Job had often expressed; see Job 13:3, note; Job 13:18-22, notes. On the grammatical construction of the passage, see Rosenmuller. As a man pleadeth for his neighbour - Hebrew “the son of man;” that is, the offspring of man.
The language of this wish is like that in Isa. l. 7, 8 , I know that I shall not be ashamed, for he is near that justifies me. Some give a gospel sense of this verse, and the original will very well bear it; and he will plead (that is, there is one that will plead) for man with God, even the Son of man for his friend, or neighbour.
Rare words are the text's own signal of a deliberate thread: the fewer the occurrences, the more the places it appears belong together.
The walk8
Follow this verse’s cross-references two steps out. Each card is a verse this one points to, and beneath it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several different paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it. Every stop shows its own words, and every stop is a page.
Through
Romans 9:20But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to Him who formed it, “Why did You make me like this?”
leads to
You have turned things upside down, as if the potter were regarded as clay. Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, “He did not make me”? Can the pottery say of…
Reached by 2 independent paths from here.
But now, O LORD, You are our Father; we are the clay, and You are the potter; we are all the work of Your hand.
Reached by 2 independent paths from here.
Woe to him who quarrels with his Maker—one clay pot among many. Does the clay ask the potter, ‘What are you making?’ Does your work say, ‘He has no hands’?
Why do you complain to Him that He answers nothing a man asks?
Reached by 2 independent paths from here.
Through
Isaiah 45:9Woe to him who quarrels with his Maker—one clay pot among many. Does the clay ask the potter, ‘What are you making?’ Does your work say, ‘He has no hands’?
leads to
But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to Him who formed it, “Why did You make me like this?”
Does an axe raise itself above the one who swings it? Does a saw boast over him who saws with it? It would be like a rod waving the one who lifts it, or…
Through
Ecclesiastes 6:10Whatever exists was named long ago, and what happens to a man is foreknown; but he cannot contend with one stronger than he.
leads to