What Does Job 19:18 Mean?
Even young children spurn me; I rise, and they speak against 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
Yea, young children despised me; I arose, and they spake against me.THE KEY
The Hebrew word for “despised” is the same root used for “refused”: the children treat Job as someone to cast aside.
THE MEANING
You can stand and still meet contempt; rising does not make the voices around you gentle. The rejection reaches you even through the mouths of children, making the loneliness stark.
THE ROOT
מָאֲסוּ
ma'asu
GROWS FROM
מאס
ma'as
to reject, refuse, or spurn; to treat as unacceptable
“spurn” in this verse is ma'asu. The same root describes the builders’ refusal of a stone in Psalm 118:22. English makes “despised” and “refused” sound different, but Hebrew joins them in the act of setting something aside.
ALSO GROWS
refused: rejected or treated as unsuitable
Psalm 118:22 uses this root for the stone rejected by its builders, showing that it names exclusion, not only an insult.
rejected: refused or cast aside
In 1 Samuel 15:23, the same root describes rejecting the word of the LORD, carrying the sense of a decisive refusal.
THE PATTERN
Contempt from those around a sufferer becomes part of the suffering itself.
But I am a worm and not a man; the scorn of humankind, despised by the people.He is despised and left off by men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. And as one hiding the face, we hid our faces from him. He was despised, and we did not reckon him.Those passing by spoke evil against him, shaking their heads.THE THREAD
The stone the builders push away becomes the head of the corner.Job’s “despised” and the builders’ “refused” are forms of the same Hebrew root, מָאַס (ma’as), meaning to reject or refuse. The psalm names the refused stone as the cornerstone, making Job’s word of exclusion resonate with an image of rejection that does not erase what was rejected.
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