What Does Job 15:14 Mean?
What is a frail one, that he should be clean? And the one born of a woman, that he should be aligned?
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
What is man, that he should be clean? and he which is born of a woman, that he should be righteous?THE KEY
The verse presses two distinct questions against mortal life: can a person be clear, and can one born of a woman stand in alignment?
THE MEANING
This question meets you at the level of origin: being born human does not, by itself, establish cleanness or alignment before God. It exposes the limits of any claim to complete purity or right standing.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that human birth or status automatically guarantees cleanness before God.
THE ROOT
יִצְדָּק
yitsdaq
GROWS FROM
צדק
ṣ-d-q
To be right, just, or in alignment.
Righteousness here carries the sense of alignment: being found in right relation. The same root forms words for justice and the aligned person, so the question reaches beyond reputation to whether a mortal can stand rightly.
ALSO GROWS
tsedeq: Justice; what is right or aligned.
צֶדֶק
It shows that the verse’s question about righteousness also touches the state of what is just.
tsaddiq: A righteous or aligned person.
צַדִּיק
This branch names the person who embodies the alignment the verse asks about.
יִזְכֶּה
yizkeh
GROWS FROM
זכה
z-k-h
To be clean, pure, or cleared.
“clean” in this verse is yizkeh. This root can describe both purity and being cleared of blame. The verse’s question about cleanness therefore reaches inward to the question of whether a person can stand clear.
ALSO GROWS
zakh: Pure or clear.
זַךְ
It makes visible the root’s image of cleanness as clarity.
hizzakkoti: I make myself clean; I clear myself (Job 9:30).
הִזַּכּוֹתִי
This form brings self-cleansing into view, sharpening Job’s question about whether human effort can establish cleanness.
אֱנוֹשׁ
enosh
GROWS FROM
אנש
ʾ-n-sh
To be frail or gravely ill; the noun can refer to mortal humanity.
“a frail one” in this verse is enosh. The word for man here is enosh, foregrounding vulnerable, mortal humanity. Its root also describes a grievous condition, giving the verse’s questions about cleanness and alignment an edge of human fragility.
ALSO GROWS
enosh: A mortal human being.
אֱנוֹשׁ
It frames the verse’s question around the limits of human life.
anush: Grievously or incurably sick (Jeremiah 17:9).
אָנֻשׁ
This related form makes the root’s sense of frailty more vivid beside the question of human cleanness.
THE PATTERN
Scripture repeatedly places human claims of cleanness and alignment under the measure of God’s sight.
Do not enter into judgment with your servant, for no living one is aligned before your face.As it is written, There is none aligned, not even one.THE THREAD
Do not enter into judgment with your servant, for no living one is aligned before your face.The psalm uses the same צדק root in “be justified” that Job uses in “be righteous.” That shared root makes the connection precise: Job asks whether a person born of a woman can stand aligned, and the psalm asks whether any living person can do so before God.
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