What Does Job 19:13 Mean?
He has put my brothers far from me, and those who know me have indeed turned aside from me.
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 hath put my brethren far from me, and mine acquaintance are verily estranged from me.THE KEY
The verse’s wound is the turn from knowing to estrangement: those who know him become strangers, and those closest to him are made far away.
THE MEANING
This verse names a rupture that is both imposed and relational: his brothers are moved far from him, and his acquaintances become strangers. The pain is not only a feeling of loneliness; the bonds that once made him known are no longer near.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Being known by someone does not guarantee that they will remain close.
THE ROOT
הִרְחִיק
hirḥîq
GROWS FROM
רחק
r-ḥ-q
To be distant; in the causative form here, to put at a distance.
The verb describes distance being made, not merely felt: his brothers are put far from him. Hebrew ties that action to the broader idea of distance itself, so the rupture has a spatial shape in the language.
ALSO GROWS
raḥoq: Far, distant.
רָחוֹק
The adjective names the condition created when someone is put far away.
merḥaq: Distance, a far-off place.
מֶרְחָק
This noun makes explicit the distance that the verse’s verb enacts.
זָרוּ
zārû
GROWS FROM
זור
z-w-r
To become a stranger or foreign to someone.
“have indeed turned aside from me” in this verse is zārû. The word rendered “estranged” says that his acquaintances have become strangers. The relationship has changed from familiarity into alienation, a shift the English phrase can soften.
ALSO GROWS
zār: A stranger, outsider, or foreign person.
זָר
This noun names the state the acquaintances have entered: they are strangers to him.
zārîm: Strangers, outsiders.
זָרִים
The plural form carries the same idea of people who have become foreign to one another.
יֹדְעַי
yōdəʿay
GROWS FROM
ידע
y-d-ʿ
To know, perceive.
“those who know me” in this verse is yōdəʿay. “My acquaintances” comes from the Hebrew verb for knowing. The verse places those who know him beside the word for strangers: knowing and estrangement now occupy the same relationship.
ALSO GROWS
yādaʿ: To know, perceive.
יָדַע
The verb identifies the knowing that underlies the word translated “acquaintance.”
dēʿāh: Knowledge, understanding.
דֵּעָה
This related noun keeps the root’s sense of knowing visible beneath the social label.
THE PATTERN
Scripture names relational abandonment as an actual rupture, not merely an inward impression.
My lovers and my friends stand back from my stroke, and my nearest stand far off.I am laid bare before all who press in on me, most of all before my neighbors; a shudder to those who know me, and those who see me out in the open flee from me.Look, an hour is coming, and it has come, that you will be scattered, each to his own, and you will let go of me alone. And I am not alone, because the Father is with me.THE THREAD
My lovers and my friends stand back from my stroke, and my nearest stand far off.Job’s verb הִרְחִיק comes from רחק, the root of distance. Psalm 38:11 uses מֵרָחוֹק, “afar off,” from that same root, making the movement away audible in both verses.
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