What Does Job 15:35 Mean?
They conceive toil, and bring forth hollowness, and their belly makes deceit stand.
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
They conceive mischief, and bring forth vanity, and their belly prepareth deceit.THE KEY
The verse turns wrongdoing into a pregnancy: mischief is conceived, brought forth, and followed by deceit prepared within.
THE MEANING
The verse meets you with a severe image: mischief takes shape within, comes forth as an outcome, and the inner life makes deceit ready. Harm is shown as something carried and formed before it appears.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that deceit is only a stray thought or that damaging outcomes arrive from nowhere: the verse shows them being gestated and prepared within.
THE ROOT
הָרוּ
hāru
GROWS FROM
הרה
h-r-h
To conceive, become pregnant, or carry a pregnancy.
“conceive” in this verse is hāru. The Hebrew casts mischief as something gestated, not as a passing thought. Paired with “bring forth,” the word gives wrongdoing a whole cycle of formation before it appears.
ALSO GROWS
herayon: Pregnancy
הֵרָיוֹן
It makes the verse’s conception image a sustained process of carrying what is forming within.
harah: Pregnant
הָרָה
This describes the state of carrying what has been conceived, deepening the verse’s image of inward formation.
וְיָלֹדוּ
veyālōdū
GROWS FROM
ילד
y-l-d
To give birth or beget.
“bring forth” in this verse is veyālōdū. The same root names both giving birth and the child who is born. What comes forth is portrayed as the offspring of what was carried within, not as a separate event.
ALSO GROWS
yeled: Child
יֶלֶד
The child is what has been brought forth; here, vanity is depicted as the issue of conceived mischief.
toledot: Generations or offspring
תּוֹלְדוֹת
This branch extends birth into what proceeds from a source, echoing the verse’s picture of an inner origin producing an outward result.
תָּכִין
tākhīn
GROWS FROM
כון
k-w-n
To be firm or established; in causative forms, to establish or make ready.
“makes ... stand” in this verse is tākhīn. The belly does more than contain deceit: this root gives the image of setting it in place and making it ready. The verse’s final movement is from conception and birth to an inner preparation that persists.
ALSO GROWS
nakhon: Firm, established, or ready
נָכוֹן
Its sense of being made ready echoes the belly arranging deceit before it is expressed.
makhon: Place or dwelling
מָכוֹן
This branch suggests something established in a place, illuminating the verse’s picture of deceit being settled within.
THE PATTERN
Scripture depicts wrongdoing as a gestation: what is conceived within is carried toward an outward result.
Behold, he writhes with crookedness, conceives toil, and gives birth to falsehood.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.Then craving, when it has conceived, gives birth to falling short; and falling short, when it is full-grown, bears death.THE THREAD
Behold, he writhes with crookedness, conceives toil, and gives birth to falsehood.Psalm 7:14 shares the Hebrew roots הרה (harah, conceive) and ילד (yalad, bring forth) with Job 15:35. It also places עָמָל (ʿāmāl, trouble) and אָוֶן (ʾāven, trouble or wrongdoing) within the same birth image, showing how the inner process unfolds into falsehood.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us