“Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one.”
"Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? There is not one." Job articulates human universal sinfulness—no one is pure, none can be clean. This verse seems to concede the friends' point: humans are inherently flawed and therefore deserve suffering. Yet in context, it serves a different purpose: if all humans are unclean, then God's condemnation of Job specifically remains inexplicable; why punish this one unclean person so severely?
Church Fathers on Job 14:4
Who can make clean a thing conceived of unclean seed? Is it not Thou, Who only Art? He That alone is clean in Himself can cleanse the unclean thing. For man, who lives in a corruptible flesh, has the uncleannesses of temptation engrained in him, seeing that he derived them from his birth. For his very conception, for the sake of fleshly gratification, is uncleanness. Hence the Psalmist saith, Behold, I was shapen in wickedness, and in sin hath my mother conceived me. Hence…
Nicene & Post-Nicene / Ante-Nicene Fathers translations · public domain
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