What Does Job 21:14 Mean?
They say to God, Turn aside from us; we do not delight in the knowledge of your ways.
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
Therefore they say unto God, Depart from us; for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways.THE KEY
The request for distance reveals a desire that rejects knowing God’s way.
THE MEANING
The verse names a present possibility in you: asking God to withdraw because you do not desire to know God’s way. The distance expresses an active refusal of encounter, not merely a lack of information.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that not knowing God’s way is always just an information gap; the verse names refusal as one source of that distance.
THE ROOT
חָפַצְנוּ
chaphatsnu
GROWS FROM
חפץ
ḥ-p-ṣ
To take pleasure in, desire, or be willing.
“do not delight in” in this verse is chaphatsnu. The verse describes unwillingness, not inability: they do not take pleasure in knowing God’s ways. The refusal is located in what they desire, so the request for distance follows from that preference.
ALSO GROWS
chaphēts: To delight in, desire, or be willing.
חָפֵץ
This verb shows that their refusal concerns what they are willing to receive.
chephets: Delight, desire, pleasure, or a matter of concern.
חֵפֶץ
The related noun connects desire with what a person values or gives attention to.
דַּעַת
da’at
GROWS FROM
ידע
y-d-ʿ
To know or recognize.
“knowledge” in this verse is da’at. The root can name knowing through recognition and encounter, not only holding information. The refusal reaches beyond facts about God: it rejects knowing God’s way relationally.
ALSO GROWS
yada: To know or recognize.
יָדַע
This verb brings the root’s active sense of knowing into view.
modaʿ: An acquaintance or kinsman.
מוֹדָע
This related word shows the root’s reach into personal recognition and relationship.
דְּרָכֶיךָ
derakhekha
GROWS FROM
דרך
d-r-k
To tread, step, or travel.
A way is connected to treading: it is a path walked, not merely an idea understood. To know God’s ways is to encounter the direction of that path.
ALSO GROWS
derek: A way, road, or path.
דֶּרֶךְ
This is the word’s direct form in the verse, naming the path they do not want to know.
darak: To tread or step.
דָּרַךְ
The verb exposes the movement held inside “way”: a path is made legible by walking it.
THE PATTERN
When God’s way is unwanted, resistance appears as both rejection of divine rule and refusal to retain knowledge of God.
Because they hate knowledge, and do not choose the awe of the LORD.Let us tear their bonds apart, and throw their cords off us.And just as they did not see fit to hold God in their knowing, God gave them over to a mind that failed the test, to do what does not fit.THE THREAD
My foot clings to his step; his way I guard, and I do not bend aside.The same Hebrew root, דרך (d-r-k; treading), appears as “ways” here and “way” there. Job 21:14 names refusal of that path; Job 23:11 names a foot holding to its steps.
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