Job 6:12

Literal Standard Version

Is my strength the strength of stones? Is my flesh bronze?

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
Is my strength that of stone,or my flesh made of bronze?

Hebrew Names Version
Is my strength the strength of stones? Or is my flesh of brass?

King James Version
Is my strength the strength of stones? or is my flesh of brass?

English Standard Version
Is my strength the strength of stones, or is my flesh bronze?

New Century Version
I do not have the strength of stone; my flesh is not bronze.

New English Translation
Is my strength like that of stones? or is my flesh made of bronze?

Amplified Bible
"Is my strength and endurance that of stones, Or is my flesh made of bronze?

New American Standard Bible
"Is my strength the strength of stones, Or is my flesh bronze?

World English Bible
Is my strength the strength of stones? Or is my flesh of brass?

Geneva Bible (1587)
Is my strength the strength of stones? or is my flesh of brasse?

Legacy Standard Bible
Is my strength the strength of stones,Or is my flesh bronze?

Berean Standard Bible
Is my strength like that of stone, or my flesh made of bronze?

Contemporary English Version
I am not strong as stone or bronze,

Complete Jewish Bible
Is my strength the strength of stones? Is my flesh made of bronze?

Darby Translation
Is my strength the strength of stones? is my flesh of brass?

Easy-to-Read Version
I am not strong like a rock. My body is not made from bronze.

George Lamsa Translation
Is my strength the strength of stones? Or is my flesh of brass?

Good News Translation
Am I made of stone? Is my body bronze?

Lexham English Bible
Or is my strength like the strength of stones? Or is my flesh bronze?

Literal Translation
Is my strength the strength of stones? Or is my flesh bronze?

Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
Is my strength the strength of stones? Or, is my flesh made of brasse?

American Standard Version
Is my strength the strength of stones? Or is my flesh of brass?

Bible in Basic English
Is my strength the strength of stones, or is my flesh brass?

Bishop's Bible (1568)
Is my strength the strength of stones? or is my fleshe of brasse?

JPS Old Testament (1917)
Is my strength the strength of stones? or is my flesh of brass?

King James Version (1611)
Is my strength the strength of stones? or is my flesh of brasse?

Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
Is my strength the strength of stones? or is my flesh of brass?

English Revised Version
Is my strength the strength of stones? or is my flesh of brass?

Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Nethir my strengthe is the strengthe of stoonus, nether my fleisch is of bras.

Update Bible Version
Is my strength the strength of stones? Or is my flesh of bronze?

Webster's Bible Translation
[Is] my strength the strength of stones? or [is] my flesh of brass?

New King James Version
Is my strength the strength of stones? Or is my flesh bronze?

New Living Translation
Do I have the strength of a stone? Is my body made of bronze?

New Life Bible
Do I have the strength of stones? Is my flesh brass?

New Revised Standard
Is my strength the strength of stones, or is my flesh bronze?

J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
Is my strength, the strength of stones? Or is, my flesh, of bronze?

Douay-Rheims Bible
My strength is not the strength of stones, nor is my flesh of brass.

Revised Standard Version
Is my strength the strength of stones, or is my flesh bronze?

Young's Literal Translation
Is my strength the strength of stones? Is my flesh brazen?

New American Standard Bible (1995)
"Is my strength the strength of stones, Or is my flesh bronze?

Contextual Overview

⁸O that my request may come, || That God may grant my hope! ⁹That God would please—and bruise me, || Loose His hand and cut me off! ¹⁰And yet it is my comfort || (And I exult in pain—He does not spare), || That I have not hidden || The sayings of the Holy One. ¹¹What [is] my power that I should hope? And what [is] my end that I should prolong my life? ¹²Is my strength the strength of stones? Is my flesh bronze?¹³Is my help not with me, || And substance driven from me?

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

of brass: Heb. brasen, Job 40:18, Job 41:24

Reciprocal: Exodus 38:2 - brass

Cross-References

Genesis 6:1
And it comes to pass that mankind has begun to multiply on the face of the ground, and daughters have been born to them,

Genesis 6:2
and the sons of God see that they, the daughters of men, [are] beautiful, and they take women for themselves of all whom they have chosen.

Genesis 6:3
And YHWH says, "My Spirit does not strive in man for all time, for indeed, he [is] flesh, but his days have been one hundred and twenty years."

Genesis 6:4
The giants were in the earth in those days, and even afterward, when sons of God come in to the daughters of men, and they have borne to them those who [were] the mighty from of old, the men of renown.

Genesis 6:5
And YHWH sees that the wickedness of man [is] abundant in the earth, and every imagination of the thoughts of his heart [is] only evil every day;

Genesis 6:8
And Noah found grace in the eyes of YHWH.

Genesis 6:13
And God said to Noah, "An end of all flesh has come before Me, for the earth has been full of violence from their presence; and behold, I am destroying them with the earth.

Genesis 6:14
Make an ark of gopher-wood for yourself; you make rooms within the Ark, and you have covered it from inside and from outside with pitch;

Genesis 6:15
and this [is] how you do it: three hundred cubits [is] the length of the Ark, fifty cubits its breadth, and thirty cubits its height;

Genesis 6:16
you make a window for the Ark, and you finish it to a cubit from above; and you put the opening of the Ark in its side; you make it [with] lower, second, and third [stories].

Gill's Notes on the Bible

[Is] my strength the strength of stones?.... Is it like such especially which are foundation and corner stones that support a building? or like a stone pillar, that will bear a prodigious weight? no, it is not:

or [is] my flesh of brass? is it made of brass? or is it like to brass for hardness, or for sustaining any weight laid on it? it is not; and, therefore, it cannot bear up under the ponderous load of afflictions on it, but must sink and fail; it is but flesh and blood, and that flesh like grass, weak and feeble; and, therefore, death is better than life laden with such an insupportable burden.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Is my strength the strength of stones? - That is, like a rampart or fortification made of stones, or like a craggy rock that can endure assaults made upon it. A rock will bear the beatings of the tempest, and resist the floods, but how can frail man do it? The idea of Job is, that he had no strength to bear up against these accumulated trials; that he was afraid that he should be left to sink under them, and to complain of God; and that his friends were not to wonder if his strength gave way, and he uttered the language of complaint.

Or is my flesh of brass? - Margin, “brazen.” The comparison used here is not uncommon. So Cicero, Aca. Qu. iv. 31, says, Non enim est e saxo sculptus, ant e robore dolatus homo; habet corpus, habet animum; movetur mente, movetur sensibus: - “for man is not chiselled out of the rock, nor cut from a tree; he has a body, he has a soul; he is actuated by mind, he is swayed by senses.” So Theocritus, in his description of Amycus, Idyll. xxii. 47:

Στήθεα δ ̓ ἐσφαίρωτο πελώρια και πλατὺ νῶτον,

Σαρκὶ σιδαρείῃ σφυρήλακος οἷα κολασσός.

Stēthea d' esfairōto pelōria kai platu nōton,

Sarki sidareiē sfurēlakos hoia kolossos.

Round as to his vast breast and broad back, and with iron flesh, he is as if a colossus formed with a hammer - So in Homer the expression frequently occurs - σιδήρειον ἦτορ sidēreion ētor - an iron heart - to denote courage. And so, according to Schultens, it has come to be a proverb, οὐκ ἀπὸ δρυὸς, οὐκ ἀπο πέτρης ouk apo druos, ouk apo petrēs - not from a tree, not from a rock. The meaning of Job is plain. He had flesh like others. His muscles, and nerves, and sinews, could not bear a constant force applied to them, as if they were made of brass or iron. They must give way; and he apprehended that he would sink under these sorrows, and be left to use language that might dishonor God. At all events, he felt that these great sorrows justified the strong expressions which he had already employed.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Job 6:12. Is my strength the strength of stones? — I am neither a rock, nor is my flesh brass, that I can endure all these calamities. This is a proverbial saying, and exists in all countries. Cicero says, Non enim est e saxo sculptus, aut e ROBORE dolatus HOMO; habet corpus, habet animum; movetur mente, movetur sensibus. "For man is not chiselled out of the rock, nor hewn out of the oak; he has a body, and he has a soul; the one is actuated by intellect, the other by the senses." Quaest. Acad. iv. 31. So Homer, where he represents Apollo urging the Trojans to attack the Greeks: -

Νεμεσησε δ' Απολλων,

Περγαμου εκκατιδων· Τρωεσσι δε κεκλετ' αυσας·

Ορνυσθ', ἱπποδαμοι Τρωες, μηδ' εικετε χαρμης

Αργειοις· επει ου σφιλιθος χρως, ουδε σιδηρος,

Χαλκον ανασχεσθαι ταμεσιχροα βαλλομενοισιν.

ILLIAD, lib. iv., ver. 507.

But Phoebus now from Ilion's towering height

Shines forth reveal'd, and animates the fight.

Trojans, be bold, and force to force oppose;

Your foaming steeds urge headlong on the foes!

Nor are their bodies ROCKS, nor ribb'd with STEEL;

Your weapons enter, and your strokes they feel.

POPE.

These are almost the same expressions as those in Job.