What Does Job 2:7 Mean?
So went forth the Adversary from the face of the LORD, and struck Job with a harmful boil from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head.
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
So went Satan forth from the presence of the LORD, and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown.THE KEY
The verse frames Job’s whole-body sores as the mark of a blow from the Adversary, not an abstract condition.
THE MEANING
The verse puts bodily suffering in full view: the affliction reaches from the sole to the crown. It names an adversary as the agent and describes the action as a strike, while keeping the LORD’s presence in the scene. The pain is neither hidden nor explained away.
THE ROOT
וַיַּךְ
vayyak
GROWS FROM
נכה
n-k-h
to strike, smite
“struck” in this verse is vayyak. The strike verb shares its root with words for a blow and for someone stricken. That root makes the sores the bodily form of an inflicted blow, while the span from sole to crown shows its reach across Job’s whole body.
ALSO GROWS
makkāh: blow, wound, plague
מַכָּה
This noun names the blow or plague that the verb enacts against Job.
mukké: stricken, smitten
מֻכֶּה
This form describes the state of one who has received the strike, linking the act to its bodily result.
THE PATTERN
Scripture uses the body’s endpoints to show affliction reaching the whole person.
From the sole of the foot to the head there is no unbroken place in it, but wounds, welts, and fresh blows. They have not been closed, nor bound up, nor softened with oil.The LORD shall strike you in the knees, and in the legs, with a harmful boil that cannot be healed, from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head.And it happened, while he was in one of the towns, and look, a man full of leprosy. And when he saw Jesus, he fell upon his face and begged him, saying, Lord, if you will, you are able to make me clean.THE THREAD
The LORD shall strike you in the knees, and in the legs, with a harmful boil that cannot be healed, from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head.Deuteronomy repeats the Hebrew strike root נכה (n-k-h, “strike”) and the boil phrase, then gives the same sole-to-head span. The close echo links Job’s bodily affliction to another passage that names the violence plainly.
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