What Does Job 14:3 Mean?
And do you open your eyes upon such a one, and bring me into judgment with 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
And dost thou open thine eyes upon such an one, and bringest me into judgment with thee?THE KEY
God’s gaze does not merely notice the fragile person; it brings that person into judgment.
THE MEANING
You are seen in your fragility, and the gaze brings you into direct encounter with judgment. That attention is not presented as comfort; it feels exposing, and the question lets the pressure remain.
THE ROOT
פָּקַחְתָּ
pāqaḥtā
GROWS FROM
פקח
p-q-ḥ
To open, especially the eyes; to make seeing possible.
“do you open your eyes” in this verse is pāqaḥtā. Here, “open thine eyes upon” describes a gaze fixed on someone, with the force of scrutiny. The same root can describe eyes receiving sight, linking God’s attention with the act of opening perception.
ALSO GROWS
tippāqaḥnāh: Shall be opened; used of blind eyes receiving sight.
תִּפָּקַחְנָה
The same root describes sight as something opened, making the gaze in this verse part of a wider language of seeing.
piqqēaḥ: Seeing, or one who sees.
פִּקֵּחַ
This related form names the open-eyed person, connecting the act of opening eyes with the capacity to see.
תָּבִיא
tāḇîʾ
GROWS FROM
בוא
b-w-ʾ
To come or enter; in the causative form, to bring or cause to enter.
The verb translated “bringest” has causative force: God causes the speaker to come into judgment. The wording makes the encounter a movement into the case, not simply a verdict delivered from a distance.
ALSO GROWS
bôʾ: To come or enter.
בּוֹא
The base verb carries the sense of arrival that remains inside “bringest.”
māḇôʾ: An entrance or entry.
מְבוֹא
This related noun gives the root a spatial sense: being brought means entering into a place or encounter.
מִשְׁפָּט
mishpāṭ
GROWS FROM
שפט
sh-p-ṭ
To judge or decide a case.
This root belongs to the language of adjudicating a case and determining what is right. With “with thee,” judgment is not an abstract verdict: the speaker is brought into an encounter with the one who judges.
ALSO GROWS
shāphaṭ: To judge or decide a case.
שָׁפַט
This verb shows the action at the root of “judgment.”
shōphēṭ: A judge, one who adjudicates.
שֹׁפֵט
This related form makes the encounter personal: judgment involves the one who decides the case.
THE PATTERN
The divine gaze reaches the vulnerable person with searching attention and brings life into the open.
And that you muster him each morning, and test him each moment?To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David. O LORD, you probe me, and you perceive me.And no creation is hidden before him, but all things are naked and bared at the throat to the eyes of him to whom our account belongs.THE THREAD
To open blind eyes, to bring the prisoners out of the prison, and those who settle in darkness out of the prison house.Isaiah’s “open” uses the same Hebrew root (פקח, pāqaḥ, “open”) as Job’s “open thine eyes.” The root links God’s searching gaze with eyes opened to sight, while Isaiah shows that this opening can also accompany people being brought out of confinement.
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