What Does Job 21:7 Mean?
Why do the wicked live, grow old, and even grow mighty in strength?
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
Wherefore do the wicked live, become old, yea, are mighty in power?THE KEY
The verse lets wickedness, long life, and real power coexist without treating prosperity as proof of goodness.
THE MEANING
You see people marked by wickedness continue to live, grow old, and become powerful in tangible ways. The verse lets that contradiction stand as a real question instead of turning prosperity into proof that their way is right.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Long life and visible power reliably prove that someone’s conduct is right.
THE ROOT
גָּבְרוּ
gāḇərū
GROWS FROM
גבר
g-b-r
To be strong, prevail, or overcome.
“grow mighty in strength” in this verse is gāḇərū. The verb means more than possessing power: it describes prevailing or becoming strong. It stands beside חַיִל (ḥayil, strength, resources, or wealth), so the verse names both rising force and the means through which that force becomes visible.
ALSO GROWS
gāḇar: To be strong or prevail.
גָּבַר
This verb shows the active force inside the phrase translated are mighty.
gibbōr: A mighty person or warrior.
גִּבּוֹר
The same root describes someone whose strength is publicly visible.
gəḇūrāh: Might, strength, or valor.
גְּבוּרָה
This branch makes the root’s range clear: power can describe a person, an action, or the strength itself.
יִחְיוּ
yiḥyū
GROWS FROM
חיה
ḥ-y-h
To live or remain alive.
“live” in this verse is yiḥyū. The form describes continuing life, so Job’s question concerns people who go on living as the years pass and their power grows. The root carries no verdict of goodness: here, life is named as an observable fact alongside wickedness.
ALSO GROWS
ḥay: Living or alive.
חַי
This adjective shares the root’s direct sense of being alive.
ḥayyim: Life.
חַיִּים
The noun makes visible the same root that appears here as the ongoing act of living.
רְשָׁעִים
reshaʿim
GROWS FROM
רשע
r-sh-ʿ
To act wickedly or be guilty.
This root can name a wicked person, wickedness itself, and the act of doing wrong, binding the label to conduct. That designation stands beside continued life and rising force, so naming the wrong does not make its visible success disappear.
ALSO GROWS
rāshāʿ: A wicked person.
רָשָׁע
This singular form shares the root of the plural word in the verse.
reshaʿ: Wickedness or wrongdoing.
רֶשַׁע
The noun names the condition or conduct associated with the person.
hirshiaʿ: To act wickedly or incur guilt.
הִרְשִׁיעַ
This verbal branch connects the label to what a person does.
THE PATTERN
Visible prosperity is not a reliable measure of moral alignment.
For I burn with envy at the boasting ones when I see the wholeness of the wicked.You are aligned, O LORD, when I contend with you. Yet let me speak with you of your judgments. Why does the way of the wicked break through? Why are all the betrayers at ease?So that you may become children of your Father in the heavens, for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the aligned and on the crooked.THE THREAD
Behold, these are the wicked, at rest in the ages; they overtake strength.Job’s רְשָׁעִים (reshaʿim, wicked ones) and Psalm’s רְשָׁעִים (reshaʿim, wicked ones) share the root רשע (r-sh-ʿ, wickedness). Psalm names the same visible paradox: they prosper and increase in riches, while the text still identifies them by their wickedness.
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