What Does Job 17:9 Mean?
The aligned one grasps his way, and the clean-handed one grows firmer and firmer.
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
The righteous also shall hold on his way, and he that hath clean hands shall be stronger and stronger.THE KEY
Holding to the way is not merely endurance: the one with clean hands keeps gaining strength.
THE MEANING
When you hold to your way, your strength is not fixed at its current measure. This verse joins clean hands with strength being added again and again, so persistence carries growth within it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that staying on a path only spends strength; here, strength keeps being added.
THE ROOT
אָחַז
ʾāḥaz
GROWS FROM
אחז
ʾ-ḥ-z
Grasp, seize, take hold.
“grasps” in this verse is ʾāḥaz. The word pictures the righteous person actively holding to a course, not simply finding themselves on it. English “hold on” can sound like bare survival; this root carries the sense of a grasp that keeps its hold.
ALSO GROWS
ʾăḥuzzāh: Possession, holding, or estate.
אֲחֻזָּה
This branch carries the sense of something held as one’s own, sharpening the image of a person who keeps hold of their way.
ʾāḥûz: Held, seized, or caught.
אָחוּז
The related form shows the root’s range from taking hold to being held, giving the verse’s steadfastness a tangible grip.
אֹמֶץ
ʾōmeṣ
GROWS FROM
אמץ
ʾ-m-ṣ
Be strong, strengthen, make firm.
“firmer” in this verse is ʾōmeṣ. The verse says strength is added, rather than presenting it as a fixed possession. The root also carries the sense of courage and firmness, so the increase reaches beyond sheer force to steadiness under pressure.
ALSO GROWS
ʾimmēṣ: Strengthened or made firm.
אִמֵּץ
This verbal form makes clear that strength can grow through an act of strengthening.
ʾōmeṣ: Strength or courage.
אֹמֶץ
The noun names the strength Job’s line says continues to increase.
טְהָר
ṭəhār
GROWS FROM
טהר
ṭ-h-r
Be clean or pure; cleanse.
Clean hands here are described with a root that also names cleanness and purification. The verse places that condition beside growing strength, joining what is clean in a person’s action with the firmness that keeps increasing.
ALSO GROWS
ṭāhōr: Clean or pure.
טָהוֹר
This related form shows that the verse’s clean hands belong to a wider language of cleanness and purity.
ṭohŏrāh: Cleansing or purity.
טָהֳרָה
This branch brings out the process of becoming clean, adding depth to the phrase “clean hands” without reducing it to outward appearance.
THE PATTERN
A steady course carries an increase, opening toward greater strength and clarity.
But the path of the aligned is like gleaming light, walking and shining until the day stands firm.They walk from strength to strength, and each one of them appears before God in Zion.Therefore we do not give out; though our outer person is worn through, yet our inner person is made new day after day.THE THREAD
For the LORD perceives the way of the aligned, but the way of the wicked loses its way.Both verses use the Hebrew word דֶּרֶךְ (derek, way or course) for the righteous person’s path. Job pictures that person holding the way and gaining strength; Psalm 1:6 shows the LORD knowing that way and contrasts it with a way that perishes.
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