What Does Job 11:5 Mean?
But oh that God would give a word, and open his lips against you.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
But oh that God would speak, and open his lips against thee;THE KEY
The one who demands that God speak against another may discover that God’s own words expose the accuser.
THE MEANING
This verse voices a wish for God to speak directly and open his lips against you. The speaker already imagines what that divine speech will say: accusation. The line leaves room for God’s actual words to overturn that expectation.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that an accuser can know in advance whom God will condemn.
THE ROOT
דַּבֵּר
dabbēr
GROWS FROM
דבר
d-b-r
Speak, declare; the same root also forms a word for a matter or thing.
“give a word” in this verse is dabbēr. Hebrew holds speaking and the matter spoken about within one word family. The wish is for God’s own words to settle the very matter the speaker has already judged.
ALSO GROWS
dibbēr: To speak or declare.
דִּבֵּר
This is the speech Zophar wants God to deliver.
dāḇār: A spoken word, an affair, or a matter.
דָּבָר
The branch links speech to the matter under dispute.
שְׂפָתָיו
sefatav
GROWS FROM
שפה
s-f-h
Lip; the same Hebrew word also means language and can describe an edge or boundary.
Opening lips is more than a bodily image: the same word reaches from the lip to language itself. The verse pictures the threshold where an inward judgment becomes spoken accusation.
ALSO GROWS
safah: The edge of the mouth.
שָׂפָה
The verse pictures God’s speech beginning at his opened lips.
safah: A tongue or language.
שָׂפָה
The same word connects the physical lips with speech.
safah: A boundary or edge, including a shore.
שָׂפָה
The lip is also a boundary: the place where speech crosses outward.
וְיִפְתַּח
weyiptaḥ
GROWS FROM
פתח
p-t-ḥ
Open or unseal.
“open his lips” in this verse is weyiptaḥ. The root also gives the word for an opening or doorway. The requested speech is pictured as a door opening: what was withheld becomes audible.
ALSO GROWS
pātaḥ: To open or unseal.
פָּתַח
This is the action the speaker wishes God would take with his lips.
petaḥ: An entrance or opening.
פֶּתַח
It makes the opening of the lips an image of speech passing through.
pātūaḥ: Opened or left open.
פָּתוּחַ
The related form carries the state of what has been opened.
THE PATTERN
A human wish for God’s verdict cannot determine what God will actually say.
And the LORD came, and stood, and called as at other times, Samuel, Samuel. Then Samuel answered, Speak, for your servant hears and responds.Thus says the LORD of hosts, Do not hear and respond to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you; they make you vapor. They speak a sight of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of the LORD.For I have not spoken from myself, but the Father who sent me has given me a command, what I should say and what I should speak.THE THREAD
And it was so, after the LORD had spoken these words to Job, that the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite, The burning of my anger is against you and against your two friends, for you have not spoken to me the steady thing, as my servant Job has.Zophar wishes God’s opened lips would speak against Job, but when God speaks, he says Zophar and his friends have not spoken rightly about him. The Hebrew word family for speaking also names a matter or thing, so the divine speech reveals the friends’ own misjudgment.
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