What Does Job 15:31 Mean?
Let not the one who wanders stand firm in emptiness, for emptiness is his exchange.
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
Let not him that is deceived trust in vanity: for vanity shall be his recompence.THE KEY
The same emptiness stands at both ends of the exchange: what the deceived person leans on is what comes back.
THE MEANING
When you put your weight on something hollow, it cannot return substance; what comes back carries the emptiness of what held your trust. The verse names a present loop: misplaced reliance reproduces the very lack it rests on.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief this verse undoes is that an empty promise can still produce a solid return.
THE ROOT
שָׁוְא
shav
GROWS FROM
שוא
Emptiness or falsehood; something without substance or truth.
שָׁוְא (shav, emptiness or falsehood) appears twice: first as what is trusted, then as what is received in exchange. The repetition makes the return exact, the hollow thing itself becomes the outcome.
ALSO GROWS
shav: A false or empty report.
שָׁוְא
This use shows that shav can name falsehood as well as emptiness, deepening the verse’s picture of trust placed in what has no truth.
shav: Futile effort, without substance or effect.
שָׁוְא
The same word names labor that comes to nothing, echoing the emptiness that Job says returns to the one who trusts it.
תְּמוּרָתוֹ
temurato
GROWS FROM
מור
To exchange or put one thing in the place of another.
The word translated “recompence” carries the sense of an exchange: what takes the place of what was trusted. The verse says the exchange returns shav itself, rather than some unrelated penalty.
ALSO GROWS
temurah: A replacement or exchange.
תְּמוּרָה
This noun form clarifies the force of “recompence”: it is what stands in the place of the expected return.
vayyāmîrû: They exchanged one thing for another.
וַיָּמִירוּ
The same root describes an exchange that leaves what was trusted behind and puts something else in its place.
יַאֲמֵן
ya'amen
GROWS FROM
אמן
Firmness or steadiness; to be reliable or established.
“stand firm” in this verse is ya'amen. The verb for trust grows from אמן (aman, firm or steady): it is the act of treating something as stable enough to lean on. The verse sets that real reliance against שָׁוְא (shav, emptiness), showing how trust can rest on what cannot bear its weight.
ALSO GROWS
emunah: Trust that leans its full weight on something.
אֱמוּנָה
This related word makes the bodily force of trust visible: the question is what is being treated as steady ground.
amen: An affirmation of firmness or truth.
אָמֵן
The familiar word carries the same root’s sense of something firm, sharpening the contrast with the emptiness trusted in this verse.
THE PATTERN
A hollow or false ground cannot return lasting substance; what grows from it bears the quality of what was trusted.
A Song of degrees for Solomon. Unless the LORD builds the house, its builders toil in emptiness. Unless the LORD guards the city, the watchman stays awake in emptiness.None calls out for alignment, and none judges with firmness. Leaning their full weight upon the emptiness, they speak lies; they conceive toil and bring forth crookedness.Do not be led astray. God is not sneered at. For whatever a person sows, that also he reaps.THE THREAD
None calls out for alignment, and none judges with firmness. Leaning their full weight upon the emptiness, they speak lies; they conceive toil and bring forth crookedness.Isaiah repeats the phrase “trust in vanity,” using שָׁוְא (shav, emptiness or falsehood). Its next clauses trace what that emptiness produces, lies, mischief, and crookedness, making the return Job names visible as a chain.
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