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Journey of a Passage

Job 9:33

No arbiter between us

Hebrew: "There is not between us an arbiter (mokhiah) who might lay his hand on us both." A few Hebrew manuscripts and the Greek read "Would that there were" (lu for lo'). The library's Greek: "If only there were between us a mediator, a censor." The Vulgate: "There is no one who can rebuke both."

Same letters, different readings: the consonants agree, but ancient readers vocalized or interpreted them differently

The family tree

Each row is a language or text tradition. Witnesses in the same row may share ancestry, revise one another, or have an uncertain relationship; the line under each box says which. A solid arrow appears only where direct copying or a documented revised edition is established. Order by date never implies copying. Scroll sideways on a phone.

✓ contains it · ✕ does not · ❝ quotes part of it · ⓘ reports on manuscripts · ▢ pages lost · – no copy survives

  • Same line, through lost copies
  • Translation
Hebrew
  1. Original JobPoem often dated 6th–4th century BC (debated)
  2. Masoretic Text (Leningrad Codex)AD 1008Descends, through lost copies, from Original Job
Aramaic
    Greek and its daughters
    1. Greek Job, filled-out text (library: Giguet's French)Printed Septuagint; translated 1872Translated from the Greek text as filled out after Origen
    Latin
    1. Jerome's Vulgatec. AD 390s, from HebrewTranslated from Hebrew texts of Jerome's day
    English
    1. King James Bible1611Translated from printed Masoretic Hebrew

    Every witness, in order

    1. Poem often dated 6th–4th century BC (debated)

      Original Job

      – No copy survives

      No original survives. Small Hebrew fragments of Job are known from Qumran (2Q15, 4Q99–101).

    2. c. AD 390s, from Hebrew

      Jerome's Vulgate

      ✓ Contains this passageTranslated from Hebrew texts of Jerome's day

      How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Clementine Vulgate (1592 edition).

      Non est qui utrumque valeat arguere, et ponere manum suam in ambobus.

    3. AD 1008

      Masoretic Text (Leningrad Codex)

      ✓ Contains this passageDescends, through lost copies, from Original Job

      How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Westminster Leningrad Codex, a digital transcription of the Leningrad Codex.

      לֹ֣א יֵשׁ־בֵּינֵ֣ינוּ מוֹכִ֑יחַ יָשֵׁ֖ת יָד֣וֹ עַל־שְׁנֵֽינוּ׃

    4. 1611

      King James Bible

      ✓ Contains this passageTranslated from printed Masoretic Hebrew

      How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: King James Version (1769 text).

      Neither is there any daysman betwixt us, that might lay his hand upon us both.

    5. Printed Septuagint; translated 1872

      Greek Job, filled-out text (library: Giguet's French)

      ✓ Contains this passageTranslated from the Greek text as filled out after Origen

      How the site knows this: Known here only through a translation.

      Que n’existe-t-il entre nous un médiateur, un censeur, qui écoute la cause entre vous et moi!

      Greek via Giguet's French (filled-out printed text); not checked against Ziegler's critical edition.

    What changed, and why

    The difference between lo' ("not") and lu ("if only") is a single vowel letter and changes a denial into a wish. The KJV's "daysman" is an umpire. Christian readers later linked the longed-for mediator to Christ (1 Timothy 2:5).

    What the evidence shows

    • Strongly supportedThe Greek reads 9:33 as a wish, the Masoretic as a denial.
    • Strongly supportedMokhiah means arbiter.

    Sources

      Related lessons

      • No Daysman Betwixt Us →Job agrees that God is just in power, but asks how anyone could win a case against him. God moves mountains, shakes the earth, commands the sun, spreads out the heavens, treads on the waves of the sea, and made the Bear, Orion and the Pleiades. If Job summoned him, would he answer? "He destroyeth the perfect and the wicked." There is no arbiter to lay his hand on both of them. If God took his rod away, Job would speak without fear.
      • Investigation: Job's Lawsuit Against God →Job's speeches use the language of an ancient lawsuit: contend, case, answer, be in the right, summon, witness, indictment. He wishes for an arbiter (9:33), prepares his case (13:18), appeals to a witness in heaven (16:19), asks God to stand surety for him (17:3), declares that his redeemer lives (19:25), seeks God's judgment seat (23:3) and signs his oath demanding a written charge (31:35). God answers (38:1) but turns the courtroom into a cosmos. The verdict (42:7) goes to Job.