Read the passage and its setting
Job 23:13–23:17, King James Version
Italic words were supplied in the English translation for clarity.
Job 23:13–23:17
Job Fears the Unchangeable Divine Purpose
The Main Point
Job says no one can turn God, expects the appointed action to be completed, and feels terrified rather than silenced by darkness.
What Is Happening Here?
Job carries this movement. Job says no one can turn God, expects the appointed action to be completed, and feels terrified rather than silenced by darkness.
What Came Before—and What Comes Next?
Job 23:8–23:12 has just shown: Job searches in every direction without seeing God, yet says God knows his path and claims he has treasured divine words.
Job 24:1–24:12 next develops: Job asks why judgment times are hidden and describes stolen boundaries, seized animals, displaced poor people, exploited labor, nakedness, hunger, and unanswered groans.
Follow Job's Literary Movement
See why this section appears here and how the author's literary movement leads to its meaning.
Why Is This Passage Here?
Placed between “Job Cannot Find God but Holds to His Way” and “Job Catalogues Public Exploitation That Goes Unjudged,” this unit contributes the necessary movement: Job says no one can turn God, expects the appointed action to be completed, and feels terrified rather than silenced by darkness.
Follow the Scene, Speech, or Poem
Identify Job's stated claim in Job 23:13–23:17.
Job says no one can turn God, expects the appointed action to be completed, and feels terrified rather than silenced by darkness.
Keep this interpretive control visible: The statement voices fear under unequal power and does not teach fatalism, refusal of help, or certainty about each event's hidden purpose.
What Is the Author Saying?
Why This Interpretation Fits
Speaker and stated movement
Job carries this unit. Job says no one can turn God, expects the appointed action to be completed, and feels terrified rather than silenced by darkness.
Literary role in Job
Placed between “Job Cannot Find God but Holds to His Way” and “Job Catalogues Public Exploitation That Goes Unjudged,” this unit contributes the necessary movement: Job says no one can turn God, expects the appointed action to be completed, and feels terrified rather than silenced by darkness.
Uncertainty and interpretive limit
The statement voices fear under unequal power and does not teach fatalism, refusal of help, or certainty about each event's hidden purpose.
Understand the Meaning and Its Boundaries
Clarify the words that matter and keep the conclusion no broader than the passage allows.
Words That Matter
“But he is in one mind, and who can turn him? and what his soul desireth,…”
·
This is the exact opening KJV clause of Job 23:13–23:17; read it as Job's words or narrated action inside the full paragraph.
What the Passage Is Not Saying
Reading Job 23:13–23:17 with its speaker and the whole book rules out these uses:
“Job Fears the Unchangeable Divine Purpose” does not make the literary contribution from Job an exhaustive explanation of suffering.
The statement voices fear under unequal power and does not teach fatalism, refusal of help, or certainty about each event's hidden purpose.
Context check: Job says no one can turn God, expects the appointed action to be completed, and feels terrified rather than silenced by darkness. As a literary contribution from Job, it must be evaluated with the prose frame, surrounding speech, and final verdict rather than flattened into an anonymous maxim.
What Remains True Today
Job says no one can turn God, expects the appointed action to be completed, and feels terrified rather than silenced by darkness. Job's testimony and protest deserve a full hearing without making any isolated poetic claim the book's exhaustive final word.
Respond and Remember
Let the meaning shape life carefully, then practice explaining the section in context.
How This Should Shape Us
Why these applications follow
Job's role in Job 23:13–23:17: Job says no one can turn God, expects the appointed action to be completed, and feels terrified rather than silenced by darkness.
Job says no one can turn God, expects the appointed action to be completed, and feels terrified rather than silenced by darkness. As a literary contribution from Job, it must be evaluated with the prose frame, surrounding speech, and final verdict rather than flattened into an anonymous maxim.
Job says no one can turn God, expects the appointed action to be completed, and feels terrified rather than silenced by darkness. Job's testimony and protest deserve a full hearing without making any isolated poetic claim the book's exhaustive final word.
What proportionate response follows?
Hear Job's full claim in Job 23:13–23:17, test it within the dialogue and final verdict, and let truthful protest prompt listening, evidence, and humble response rather than correction by formula. Preserve this unit-specific boundary in the action: The statement voices fear under unequal power and does not teach fatalism, refusal of help, or certainty about each event's hidden purpose.
A Concrete Example
Before applying Job 23:13–23:17, say aloud who speaks, summarize the paragraph, name the enduring truth, and refuse this overreach: The statement voices fear under unequal power and does not teach fatalism, refusal of help, or certainty about each event's hidden purpose.
Teach It Back
Explain Job 23:13–23:17 in your own words. Name the speaker, the unit's place in Job, one source-controlled textual or literary observation, one uncertainty, and one harmful use the passage does not authorize.
Your explanation stays in this browser. It is not sent or saved.
Go Deeper
The main explanation above stands on its own. Open these optional sections for fuller language, history, disagreements, and source locations.
Read it sentence by sentenceEach line inside the larger movement
Speaker and stated movement
Job carries this unit. Job says no one can turn God, expects the appointed action to be completed, and feels terrified rather than silenced by darkness.
Literary role in Job
Placed between “Job Cannot Find God but Holds to His Way” and “Job Catalogues Public Exploitation That Goes Unjudged,” this unit contributes the necessary movement: Job says no one can turn God, expects the appointed action to be completed, and feels terrified rather than silenced by darkness.
Uncertainty and interpretive limit
The statement voices fear under unequal power and does not teach fatalism, refusal of help, or certainty about each event's hidden purpose.
Original-language wording and grammarTechnical detail appears only where it helps
“But he is in one mind, and who can turn him? and what his soul desireth,…”
The opening KJV clause anchors this unit in Job's actual words or narrated action. MorphHB and NET were checked so the phrase remains inside Job 23:13–23:17 rather than carrying every possible gloss or a neighboring verse's claim.
How certain? very strongWhat the first readers would have understoodRelevant history and culture
Wisdom setting, speaker, and recoverable limits
Job 23:13–23:17 belongs to an ancient Hebrew wisdom dialogue framed by a story set in Uz. Job speaks or governs this movement. The author is unnamed, the location and date are uncertain, and the prose, poetry, wisdom poem, Elihu section, and ending have disputed compositional relationships.
How certain? probableWhy translations sometimes differMaterial translation choices
KJV wording in 23:13–23:17
The pinned KJV remains displayed exactly. MorphHB, NET notes, and where assigned NETS expose older English, difficult poetry, and material alternatives. The controlling issue here is: The statement voices fear under unequal power and does not teach fatalism, refusal of help, or certainty about each event's hidden purpose.
How certain? strongEarlier Scripture and inherited backgroundSupported quotations, allusions, and inherited ideas
Job within Jewish Scripture and wisdom
Job 23:13–23:17 belongs first to Job's place among the Writings and the wider biblical traditions of wisdom, lament, creation, justice, mortality, and protest. Later Jewish interpretation is part of reception, not a replacement for the unit's own speaker and flow.
How certain? probableHow this connects with the rest of ScriptureThe passage's own meaning remains primary
Canonical relationships after the first horizon
Psalms of lament, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, Genesis creation language, Ezekiel's remembered Job, and James's later reference to Job may clarify reception only after Job 23:13–23:17's own voice and uncertainty are established. The later canon cannot make the friends narrator-approved.
How certain? probableTextual variantsManuscript differences only when they affect meaning
No reviewed textual variant changes Job 23:13–23:17's central movement; the Hebrew and NET notes were still checked against the pinned KJV.
Where careful interpreters disagreeThe strongest options and their difficulties
Where do responsible readings differ?
Best judgment: The statement voices fear under unequal power and does not teach fatalism, refusal of help, or certainty about each event's hidden purpose.
How certain? strongTheology that emerges from this passageConclusions drawn after reading the complete section
Theological contribution
Within Job 23:13–23:17, integrity, lament, justice, wisdom, divine freedom, creaturely limits, truthful speech, and compassionate presence must be weighted according to Job's role rather than flattened into one voice.
How certain? strongTheological contribution
Job says no one can turn God, expects the appointed action to be completed, and feels terrified rather than silenced by darkness.
How certain? strongCommon ways this passage gets misusedFair explanation, context check, and stronger reading
“Job Fears the Unchangeable Divine Purpose” does not make the literary contribution from Job an exhaustive explanation of suffering.
A vivid sentence in Job 23:13–23:17 can be detached from Job, the prose-versus-poetry distinction, surrounding speeches, and God's final verdict.
Job says no one can turn God, expects the appointed action to be completed, and feels terrified rather than silenced by darkness. As a literary contribution from Job, it must be evaluated with the prose frame, surrounding speech, and final verdict rather than flattened into an anonymous maxim.
Job says no one can turn God, expects the appointed action to be completed, and feels terrified rather than silenced by darkness. Job's testimony and protest deserve a full hearing without making any isolated poetic claim the book's exhaustive final word.
Job says no one can turn God, expects the appointed action to be completed, and feels terrified rather than silenced by darkness.
The statement voices fear under unequal power and does not teach fatalism, refusal of help, or certainty about each event's hidden purpose.
A vivid sentence in Job 23:13–23:17 can be detached from Job, the prose-versus-poetry distinction, surrounding speeches, and God's final verdict.
Job says no one can turn God, expects the appointed action to be completed, and feels terrified rather than silenced by darkness. As a literary contribution from Job, it must be evaluated with the prose frame, surrounding speech, and final verdict rather than flattened into an anonymous maxim.
Job says no one can turn God, expects the appointed action to be completed, and feels terrified rather than silenced by darkness. Job's testimony and protest deserve a full hearing without making any isolated poetic claim the book's exhaustive final word.
Job says no one can turn God, expects the appointed action to be completed, and feels terrified rather than silenced by darkness.
Research trail and exact locationsThe source record behind this section
Supports: Exact displayed KJV wording, verse order, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and complete thought-unit coverage.
Job 23:13–23:17, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM-derived repository corpus
Supports: Masoretic Hebrew wording and morphology checked at the exact unit without treating morphology as a complete apparatus or interpretation.
Open Scriptures MorphHB v2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Job.xml, OSIS 23:13–23:17
Supports: Verse-level controls for Job's difficult Hebrew, syntax, older KJV language, textual issues, speech boundaries, and alternatives in Job 23:13–23:17.
Official NET Job PDF, exact translator, study, and textual notes attached to Job 23:13–23:17
Supports: Book-level and passage-level literary, historical, theological, and pastoral synthesis with speaker distinctions and visible uncertainty.
Enter the Bible Job course, Outline and passage studies: third-cycle breakdown; applied to Job 23:13–23:17
Supports: A fully inspected critical alternative on the framework, litigation, human condition, divine speeches, and moral evaluation.
Harvey, 'Questions on the Book of Job,' Religious Studies 59.S1 (2023), pp. S7-S16, framework-versus-dialogue argument and Job's litigation; applied to Job 23:13–23:17
Sources for This Section
These records identify the source, the claim it supports, and the exact location used. A source remains evidence to evaluate; it does not replace the biblical text.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact displayed KJV wording, verse order, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and complete thought-unit coverage.
Exact location: Job 23:13–23:17, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM-derived repository corpus
Open source ↗hebrew text and morphology
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: Job
Open Scriptures
Open Scriptures, release 2.2
Supports: Masoretic Hebrew wording and morphology checked at the exact unit without treating morphology as a complete apparatus or interpretation.
Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Job.xml, OSIS 23:13–23:17
Open the fixed Hebrew Job file ↗translation and translator notes
NET Bible First Edition Notes: Job
Biblical Studies Press
Biblical Studies Press, 2006; current official PDF
Supports: Verse-level controls for Job's difficult Hebrew, syntax, older KJV language, textual issues, speech boundaries, and alternatives in Job 23:13–23:17.
Exact location: Official NET Job PDF, exact translator, study, and textual notes attached to Job 23:13–23:17
Open the official NET Job PDF ↗modern scholarly book course
Job course: summary, outline, background, introductory issues, theological themes, and Bible in the world
Daniel J. Simundson and Kathryn Schifferdecker
Enter the Bible, Luther Seminary, current online edition inspected 2026
Supports: Book-level and passage-level literary, historical, theological, and pastoral synthesis with speaker distinctions and visible uncertainty.
Exact location: Enter the Bible Job course, Outline and passage studies: third-cycle breakdown; applied to Job 23:13–23:17
Open the Enter the Bible Job course ↗open access philosophical and literary article
Questions on the Book of Job
Warren Zev Harvey
Religious Studies 59, Special Issue S1, 2023
Supports: A fully inspected critical alternative on the framework, litigation, human condition, divine speeches, and moral evaluation.
Exact location: Harvey, 'Questions on the Book of Job,' Religious Studies 59.S1 (2023), pp. S7-S16, framework-versus-dialogue argument and Job's litigation; applied to Job 23:13–23:17
Open the Cambridge Job article ↗