What Does Job 19:22 Mean?
Why do you pursue me as God, and from my flesh you are not filled?
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
Why do ye persecute me as God, and are not satisfied with my flesh?THE KEY
Job exposes a pursuit so relentless that it feels like God’s own pressure, yet its pursuers still want more of his suffering.
THE MEANING
The verse gives words to the moment when others pursue you with a force that feels godlike. It names the appetite inside that pursuit: even your flesh, your embodied self in pain, does not satisfy them.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that relentless pursuit is justified simply because the person being pursued is already suffering.
THE ROOT
תִּרְדְּפֻנִי
tirdəphuni
GROWS FROM
רדף
radaph
To pursue or chase; in a hostile setting, to persecute.
“pursue” in this verse is tirdəphuni. This word names a chase that continues after its target; the same verb can describe goodness that “follow[s]” a person. Here the wound is not only a blow but being kept in the pursuers’ sights.
ALSO GROWS
lirdof: To pursue or chase.
לִרְדֹּף
The basic verb makes the force of the accusation clear: this is continued pursuit, not a passing encounter.
wəradəphuni: “Shall follow me” (Psalm 23:6); literally, “shall pursue me.”
וְרָדְפוּנִי
The same root can name pursuit that follows a person for good or for harm; the surrounding context gives the chase its character.
תִשְׂבְּעוּ
tisbeʿu
GROWS FROM
שבע
sabaʿ
To be full or sated; to have enough.
“are not filled from” in this verse is tisbeʿu. The verb asks whether the pursuers have had their fill, turning persecution into an image of appetite. The phrase is starkly embodied: they are not sated with his flesh, with the suffering of his body.
ALSO GROWS
sāvēaʿ: Full or sated.
שָׂבֵעַ
This form makes explicit the sense of having had enough that Job places in his question.
hisbiʿa: To satisfy or fill; for example, God “satisfieth” the longing soul (Psalm 107:9).
הִשְׂבִּיעַ
The causative form shows the root’s language of filling; Job asks whether the pursuers can ever be filled by his suffering.
THE PATTERN
Relentless pursuit can press an already afflicted person as though their pain were not enough.
And Jacob burned, and contended with Laban. And Jacob answered and said to Laban, What is my rebellion? What is my falling short, that you have burned so hotly after me?After whom has the king of Israel come out? After whom do you pursue? After a dead dog, after a flea.For they pursue the one you yourself have struck, and they recount the pain of those you have pierced.THE THREAD
Shiggaion of David, which he sang unto the LORD, concerning the words of Cush the Benjamite. O LORD my God, in you I take shelter. Deliver me from all who pursue me, and pull me free.Both verses use רדף (radaph, “pursue” or “persecute”). Job names the violence of being pursued; Psalm 7:1 turns that same pursuit into a plea to be delivered from the pursuers.
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