What Does Job 16:13 Mean?
His archers circle me. He splits open my kidneys and does not spare. He pours my gall onto 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
His archers compass me round about, he cleaveth my reins asunder, and doth not spare; he poureth out my gall upon the ground.THE KEY
This is violence that does not stop at the skin: it cleaves the body’s interior and spills bitterness onto the ground.
THE MEANING
You hear a first-person cry of archers surrounding the speaker, an assailant splitting his kidneys, withholding pity, and pouring out his gall onto the ground. The violence reaches the body’s hidden interior, then becomes a visible spill of bitterness.
THE ROOT
יְפַלַּח
yefallach
GROWS FROM
פלח
To cleave, split through, or pierce.
“cleaveth” in this verse is yefallach. The verb פָּלַח (palach, to cleave or pierce) also describes an arrow striking through the liver and someone cleaving wood. That shared action makes the verse’s inner injury concrete: the body is split open by force.
ALSO GROWS
yefallach: Pierces or strikes through; Proverbs 7:23 uses this verb for a dart striking through the liver.
יְפַלַּח
The same verb links the kidneys in Job to another image of an arrow entering a body’s vulnerable interior.
poleach: One who cleaves; Psalm 141:7 uses it for cleaving wood on the earth.
פֹּלֵחַ
The word carries the physical motion of splitting into Job’s description of the wound.
מְרֵרָתִי
mererati
GROWS FROM
מרר
To be bitter or to make bitter.
The gall comes from מרר (marar, to be bitter or make bitter), a root also used for making life bitter and for bitter herbs. The verse makes bitterness bodily: it is poured from within and lands on the ground.
ALSO GROWS
vayemareru: They made bitter; Exodus 1:14 uses it of bitter hardship.
וַיְמָרְרוּ
The root connects the gall’s bitterness to suffering made bitter.
merorim: Bitter herbs; Exodus 12:8.
מְרֹרִים
The same root carries bitterness as a taste, giving the gall’s image a physical sharpness.
THE PATTERN
Violence is named by tracing where force enters the vulnerable body.
For dogs have circled me; an assembly of evildoers has surrounded me; they bore through my hands and my feet.He brings the arrows of his quiver into my kidneys.But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water.THE THREAD
He brings the arrows of his quiver into my kidneys.Both verses use כִּלְיוֹתַי (kilyotai, my kidneys or reins) for the same inner organs. Lamentations adds arrows entering them, opening Job’s image of cleaving into a more explicit picture of force reaching inside.
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