What Does Job 13:21 Mean?
Withdraw your palm far from me, and let not your terror startle me.
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
Withdraw thine hand far from me: and let not thy dread make me afraid.THE KEY
The verse separates the hand’s force from the dread that overtakes the speaker, asking for relief from each.
THE MEANING
When God’s hand feels heavy, you can name that pressure alongside the dread making you afraid. The plea asks for the hand to move away and for terror not to take hold.
THE ROOT
הָסֵר
hāsēr
GROWS FROM
סור
s-w-r
Turn aside, depart, remove.
“Withdraw” comes from a verb of turning aside: the hand is asked to move away from the speaker. Relief here is subtractive, the pressure is removed, rather than something added.
ALSO GROWS
sūr: Turn aside; depart.
סוּר
The root pictures the force changing direction and moving away.
hēsîr: Remove; take away.
הֵסִיר
This causative form makes clear that withdrawal means having the hand removed from upon the speaker.
אֵימָתְךָ
ʾēmāṯəḵā
GROWS FROM
אימ
ʾ-y-m
Be terrifying or formidable; inspire terror.
This word names terror, not merely unease. Its word family can speak of “terrors” in the plural, giving weight to the request that dread not bear down on the speaker.
ALSO GROWS
ʾēmîm: Terrors.
אֵימִים
The plural makes dread feel like an overwhelming force rather than a passing worry.
ʾiyyôm: Terrible; formidable.
אִיּוֹם
This related form describes what inspires dread, linking the feeling to the force that provokes it.
תְּבַעֲתַנִּי
təvaʿatannî
GROWS FROM
בעת
b-ʿ-t
Terrify, startle, dismay.
“startle me” in this verse is təvaʿatannî. The verb describes terror taking hold, not simply the presence of fear. The plea asks that dread not become an active force that overwhelms the speaker.
ALSO GROWS
təvaʿatannî: You terrify me.
תְּבַעֲתַנִּי
This same verb appears in Job 9:34 in a closely matched plea, linking dread with the experience of being terrorized.
yĕvaʿătûhû: They terrify him.
יְבַעֲתֻהוּ
Another form in Job 3:5 shows the root’s active force striking a person with terror.
THE PATTERN
An honest plea can name the force or terror pressing on the speaker and ask God to lift it.
Remove your stroke from me. I have run out from the blow of your hand.I am bowed low and breathing out my last from my youth. I carry your terrors, and I am faint.And he went a little farther, and fell upon his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass by me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.THE THREAD
Let him remove his rod from me, and let not his terror startle me.The same verb for “terrify me” appears in both verses, alongside the same plea for God’s force to be taken away. Here the rod becomes a hand, while the two requests remain: remove the force and stop the terror.
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