What is man, that he should be clean? and he which is born of a woman, that he should be righteous?
The verse stands in the controversy over his afflictions carried on between Job and his three friends, a controversy ordered in three rounds of speeches. Within that order it belongs to the second speech of Eliphaz, in which he brings fresh accusations against Job. Job answers that speech by protesting his innocence and by desiring death.
Because the question is asked in the mouth of Eliphaz, what is said there about Job and about God cannot automatically be taken as true but must be tested against the rest of Scripture. The question itself lays bare the human condition, that men born of woman as members of a sinful humanity cannot make themselves clean or righteous by themselves but need divine help.
The verse stands in the controversy over his afflictions carried on between Job and his three friends, a controversy ordered in three rounds of speeches. Within that order it belongs to the second speech of Eliphaz, in which he brings fresh accusations against Job. Job answers that speech by protesting his innocence and by desiring death.
Because the question is asked in the mouth of Eliphaz, what is said there about Job and about God cannot automatically be taken as true but must be tested against the rest of Scripture. The question itself lays bare the human condition, that men born of woman as members of a sinful humanity cannot make themselves clean or righteous by themselves but need divine help.