What Does Job 13:10 Mean?
He will surely reprove you, if in hiding you lift up faces.
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 will surely reprove you, if ye do secretly accept persons.THE KEY
The verse exposes the hidden act of lifting one person’s face above another, and says that secrecy does not shield it from reproof.
THE MEANING
When you quietly favor one person over another, that preference still stands exposed to reproof. The verse’s image is exact: one face is lifted above the rest.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that bias becomes harmless or invisible when it stays secret is undone here; concealment does not make partiality impartial.
THE ROOT
תִּשָּׂאוּ פָנִים
tissa'u panim
GROWS FROM
נשא
lift, carry, bear
“lift up faces” in this verse is tissa'u panim. The phrase rendered “accept persons” is literally “lift faces”: partiality raises one person’s standing above another’s. The image makes concealed bias visible as an act of elevation, not merely a private opinion.
ALSO GROWS
nasa: lift, carry, bear
נָשָׂא
The same root spans carrying and raising; here a face is lifted into preference.
nasi: chief, prince
נָשִׂיא
Traditionally linked to one raised up, echoing how partiality elevates a favored person’s standing.
בַּסֵּתֶר
basseter
GROWS FROM
סתר
hide, conceal
“in hiding” in this verse is basseter. The verse locates the lifting of faces in a hidden place. Concealment describes where the favoritism happens, not whether it counts.
ALSO GROWS
seter: secret, hiding place
סֵתֶר
This noun from the same root gives the concealed setting named in the verse.
mistar: hiding place, secret shelter
מִסְתָּר
The same root’s language of a hidden place echoes the verse’s contrast between concealed conduct and reproof.
THE PATTERN
When a face is lifted above the case, judgment is distorted, whether the favoritism is hidden or public.
You shall do no crookedness in judgment; you shall not lift up the face of the bowed down, nor adorn the face of the great; but in alignment shall you judge the one beside you.These also are for the wise. It is not good to regard faces in judgment.But if you receive faces, you miss the mark, and are exposed by the instruction as those who step across.THE THREAD
For the LORD your God is God of gods, and Lord of lords, the great God, the mighty, the awe-inspiring, who does not lift up the face of any and does not take a bribe.Job’s “accept persons” and Deuteronomy’s “regardeth not persons” share the Hebrew image of lifting faces. Deuteronomy says the LORD does not raise one face above another, clarifying why concealed face lifting meets reproof.
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