What Does Job 20:25 Mean?
It is drawn out, and comes from his body; the flashing sword comes out of his gall; terrors are upon him.
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
It is drawn, and cometh out of the body; yea, the glittering sword cometh out of his gall: terrors are upon him.THE KEY
The Hebrew word for “gall” shares its root with “bitter,” making bitterness bodily as the sword emerges from within.
THE MEANING
The verse puts the wound plainly before you: a blade is drawn through the body, comes out of the gall, and terror settles upon the wounded man. Nothing in the line hides the bodily cost of violence or softens the dread that follows it.
THE ROOT
מְרֹרָתוֹ
merorato
GROWS FROM
מרר
marar
To be bitter; to embitter.
The word for gall belongs to the same root as bitterness, holding a bodily organ and bitter experience in one word-family. Here the sword emerges from the gall, making the wound visceral and bitterness more than an abstract feeling.
ALSO GROWS
marar: To be bitter or to embitter.
מָרַר
This root appears in Exodus 1:14, where the Egyptians make Israel’s life bitter; it shows bitterness as something that can be inflicted and felt in life.
merorim: Bitter herbs.
מְרֹרִים
In Exodus 12:8, bitter herbs are part of the Passover meal; the shared root keeps the taste of bitterness connected to the gall named here.
THE PATTERN
Violence and harm can circle back to overtake the one who sets them in motion.
His toil turns back upon his head, and his violence comes down upon his skull.Whoever digs a pit falls into it; whoever rolls a stone, it turns back upon him.Do not be led astray. God is not sneered at. For whatever a person sows, that also he reaps.THE THREAD
Why is light given to the one who toils, and life to the bitter of living soul?Job 3:20 uses the same bitterness-root in מָרֵי נֶפֶשׁ (marê nefesh, “bitter in soul”) that appears in the word for “gall” here. One verse names bitterness in the inner life; the other places that word-family in the body, where the blade emerges.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us