What Does Job 2:3 Mean?
And the LORD said to the Adversary, Have you set your heart on my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a whole and straight man, one who stands in awe of God and turns aside from harm? And still he holds fast to his wholeness, though you stirred me against him to swallow him up for nothing.
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
And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil? and still he holdeth fast his integrity, although thou movedst me against him, to destroy him without cause.THE KEY
Job’s wholeness remains in his grip even as he is destroyed without cause.
THE MEANING
Your integrity and your injury can occupy the same moment; harm does not by itself disclose guilt. The verse names the devastation as causeless and keeps its agency in view: the LORD says the Adversary moved him against Job.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
If you are suffering, you must have done something to deserve it.
THE ROOT
תֻּמָּה
tummāh
GROWS FROM
תמם
tamam
to be complete, to come to completion
The noun translated “integrity” comes from a root meaning completeness. English can make integrity sound like an abstract moral score; here, the root carries wholeness that Job continues to hold amid devastation.
ALSO GROWS
tām: whole, blameless
תָּם
Job is called tam in Job 1:1, tying his uprightness to the same language of wholeness.
tāmīm: whole, complete, sound
תָּמִים
This branch makes the root’s sense of intactness audible beneath the English word “integrity.”
tāmam: to be complete, to come to an end
תָּמַם
The verb names completion itself, the seed beneath the noun for Job’s integrity.
מַחֲזִיק
maḥazīq
GROWS FROM
חזק
ḥazaq
to be strong or firm; to take hold
“holds fast to” in this verse is maḥazīq. The verb comes from a root whose branches include becoming strong, making firm, and holding fast. Job’s grip on his wholeness is expressed with the language of firmness, even while the assault continues.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāzaq: to be strong, to grow firm
חָזַק
This verbal branch shows the firmness contained in “holdeth fast.”
ḥāzāq: strong, firm
חָזָק
The adjective shares the root’s sense of strength with Job’s act of holding on.
ḥizzēq: to strengthen, to make firm
חִזֵּק
This branch shows the same root working as an action that makes something firm.
THE PATTERN
Scripture names suffering as causeless without treating it as evidence against the sufferer’s integrity.
Let my enemies not rejoice over me falsely; let those who hate me for nothing not wink with the eye.But this comes to pass, so that the word written in their instruction may be filled, "They hated me without cause."For this is favor, if one bears up under grief with God in view, suffering what is out of alignment.THE THREAD
Far be it from me that I should align you; until I breathe my last, I do not remove my wholeness from me.Job 27:5 uses the same word for “integrity,” תֻּמָּה (tummāh), from תמם (tamam), meaning to be complete. The wholeness he holds fast here is the same wholeness he later says he will not remove.
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