What Does Job 15:29 Mean?
He does not grow rich, nor does his wealth stand, nor does he stretch his completeness across the earth.
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 shall not be rich, neither shall his substance continue, neither shall he prolong the perfection thereof upon the earth.THE KEY
The Hebrew makes prosperity a question of footing and reach: wealth that cannot stand cannot extend itself across the earth.
THE MEANING
Material wealth can fail to take hold, the resources a person has may not endure, and the reach they hope to extend may stop short. The verse speaks now with a stark limit: possessions cannot guarantee lasting standing or reach across the earth.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that riches, once gathered, guarantee permanence or an enduring place on the earth.
THE ROOT
יָקוּם
yāqûm
GROWS FROM
קום
q-w-m
Rise, stand, become established.
English continue can sound like duration alone, but this verb says stand. The same root names being raised up and a place to stand, so the verse pictures wealth losing its footing as well as failing to last.
ALSO GROWS
qûm: Rise; stand.
קוּם
This is the root verb beneath continue: the substance does not stand.
hēqîm: Raise up; establish.
הֵקִים
The root can describe something being made to stand, underscoring the stability this wealth lacks.
māqōm: Place; standing-place.
מָקוֹם
The same root connects standing with having a place, echoing the loss of secure footing.
חֵילוֹ
ḥêlô
GROWS FROM
חיל
ḥ-y-l
Strength, force, capacity; by extension, resources or wealth.
Substance here is chayil, a word whose range includes strength, valor, and wealth. It presents material means as a person’s available force or capacity, not merely as a pile of possessions.
ALSO GROWS
ḥêl: Wealth; resources.
חֵיל
This is the sense of the word in the verse: the resources that fail to endure.
ʾēshet ḥayil: Woman of valor; capable woman.
אֵשֶׁת־חַיִל
The same root describes strength and capability, revealing the forceful sense carried inside substance.
יִטֶּה
yitteh
GROWS FROM
נטה
n-ṭ-h
Stretch, extend, incline, bend.
The verb translated prolong carries the image of extension or spreading. Beside wealth that cannot stand, it describes reach that cannot stretch across the earth.
ALSO GROWS
nāṭāh: Stretch out; extend; spread.
נָטָה
This is the direct image behind the verse’s language of prolonging or extending.
maṭṭeh: Staff; tribe.
מַטֶּה
This noun grows from the same root’s image of extension, offering another branch of the word’s reach.
THE PATTERN
Material wealth cannot guarantee that its owner’s standing or reach will endure.
For in his dying he takes nothing, and his weight does not go down after him.But God said to him, Mindless one, this night your living soul will be demanded back from you. Then whose will those things be that you have made ready?Charge those who are rich in this age, that they not be lifted high in mind, nor set their hope on uncertain riches, but upon the living God, who holds out to us richly all things to feast on.THE THREAD
The good one leaves an inheritance to his children's children; the strength of those who miss the mark is stored away for the aligned.The word translated substance in Job and wealth in Proverbs comes from the same root, חיל (ḥ-y-l), meaning strength, capacity, or resources. Job says this force will not endure; Proverbs shows wealth changing hands, so possession does not guarantee permanence.
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