What Does Job 21:3 Mean?
Bear with me, and I will speak; and after my word, mock on.
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
Suffer me that I may speak; and after that I have spoken, mock on.THE KEY
Job asks first for room to settle, then to speak, and only then gives mockery its turn: a voice does not need a promise of kindness before it can be spoken.
THE MEANING
Contempt can already be waiting when you speak. You are allowed to finish before mockery answers, though no gentle response is promised. The order lets your words exist in full before another voice tries to diminish them.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that your voice must wait until ridicule is impossible; Job speaks with mockery still waiting.
THE ROOT
הַנִּיחוּנִי
hanniḥûnî
GROWS FROM
נ־ו־ח
To rest or settle; in this causative form, to let rest or leave room.
“bear with me” in this verse is hanniḥûnî. The plea begins with a request to be let rest or settle before speaking. Hebrew makes the space for speech feel like a release from pressure, though it does not promise that the words will be welcomed.
ALSO GROWS
nûaḥ: To rest, settle, or come to rest.
נוּחַ
The same root gives the opening plea its sense of being allowed to settle before the speaker continues.
mənûḥāh: Rest or a resting place.
מְנוּחָה
The request is not only for a turn to speak but for a brief space in which the words can be set down.
דִּבְרִי
dibri
GROWS FROM
ד־ב־ר
To speak or declare; the same root also names a word or matter.
“my word” in this verse is dibri. English separates the act of speaking from the matter being spoken, while Hebrew joins them in one root. Job lets his words reach their full measure before the audience turns to ridicule.
ALSO GROWS
dāḇār: A word, statement, matter, or thing.
דָּבָר
The same root makes speech and the matter at stake part of one sound-family.
dibbēr: To speak or address.
דִּבֵּר
This verbal branch echoes Job’s insistence that his speaking be allowed to come before the response.
תַלְעִיגוּ
talʿîgû
GROWS FROM
ל־ע־ג
To mock or deride; a related form also describes speech as stammering or strange-sounding.
“mock on” in this verse is talʿîgû. The root behind mockery also appears in a phrase rendered as stammering lips in Isaiah 28:11. Hebrew links scorn with speech heard as broken or strange, sharpening the tension between Job’s intention to speak and the listeners’ willingness to receive it.
ALSO GROWS
lāʿag: To mock or deride.
לָעַג
This is the root’s direct sense in Job’s permission for the listeners to ridicule him after he finishes.
bəlaʿăgê śāfāh: With stammering lips; speech heard as strange or difficult to understand (Isaiah 28:11).
בְּלַעֲגֵי שָׂפָה
The same root can describe speech that does not land clearly, connecting mockery with a failure to receive another’s words.
THE PATTERN
Speech and response have an order: the matter is heard before an answer comes.
Hush, leave me, that I may speak, and let what may cross over me.The one who returns a word before he hears it, folly and shame are his.Know this, my beloved brothers. Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to swell.THE THREAD
Hush, leave me, that I may speak, and let what may cross over me.Both verses use ד־ב־ר (d-b-r; dāḇar), the root meaning to speak and also naming a word or matter. Job 13:13 asks for space to speak and accepts whatever follows; Job 21:3 makes the consequence explicit: ridicule comes after the words are finished.
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