What Does Job 12:20 Mean?
He removes the lips of the steady ones, and takes away the understanding of the aged.
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
He removeth away the speech of the trusty, and taketh away the understanding of the aged.THE KEY
Even those counted reliable do not own their voice or discernment; both can be taken from them.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks of voices counted reliable and judgment matured by years, yet neither remains beyond God’s reach. Speech can disappear from the trusted, and even seasoned discernment can be removed. It places voice and understanding in dependence, rather than as possessions guaranteed by reputation or age.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that trusted status or long experience guarantees that a person’s voice and judgment remain dependable.
THE ROOT
נֶאֱמָנִים
ne'emanim
GROWS FROM
אמן
אָמַן (aman): be firm, steady, reliable.
“steady ones” in this verse is ne'emanim. The English “trusty” can sound like a status conferred by reputation; נֶאֱמָנִים (ne’emanim, the reliable ones) belongs to אמן (aman, firmness and steadiness). The verse says even that firmness does not secure speech: the voice of the reliable can be removed.
ALSO GROWS
emunah: Trust that leans its full weight; steadiness and reliability.
אֱמוּנָה
This branch shows that being called trustworthy carries the sense of being firm or steady.
amen: An affirmation of what is firm or sure.
אָמֵן
Even this familiar affirmation echoes the root’s firmness, while the verse shows that no person’s voice is permanently secured by it.
טַעַם
ta'am
GROWS FROM
טעם
טָעַם (ta’am): taste; by extension, discern or judge.
The word rendered “understanding” is טַעַם (ta’am), also the word for taste: judgment is pictured as a capacity to sample and distinguish. Age does not make that inner discernment untouchable; even a seasoned taste can be taken away.
ALSO GROWS
ta'am: To taste or sample.
טָעַם
This concrete sense makes discernment a kind of inward tasting: perceiving distinctions rather than merely accumulating years.
ta'am: The capacity to perceive, judge, or understand.
טַעַם
This is the sense in Job’s phrase; the verse says even this seasoned capacity can be removed.
THE PATTERN
Wisdom and discernment remain contingent: God can conceal them from people whose status says they should possess them.
Therefore, behold, I will add again to do a wonder among this people, even a wonder and a marvel; for the wisdom of their wise ones will lose its way, and the discernment of their discerning ones will be hidden.In that hour Jesus leapt for joy in the Set-Apart Breath, and said, I thank you, Father, Lord of the heavens and the earth, that you hid these things away from the wise and the discerning, and uncovered them to babes. Yes, Father, for so it pleased you before your face.For it is written, I will make the wisdom of the wise perish, and I will set aside the understanding of the discerning.THE THREAD
And the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is Remaliah's son. If you will not be steady, surely you shall not be made steady.Job’s “trusty” is נֶאֱמָנִים (ne’emanim, reliable ones), from אמן (aman, firmness and steadiness). Isaiah uses this same root in both “believe” and “be established,” joining trust with being made firm; Job adds that even the reliable cannot guarantee their own voice.
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