What Does Job 23:14 Mean?
For he makes whole the allotted portion for me, and many like these are with 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
For he performeth the thing that is appointed for me: and many such things are with him.THE KEY
Job’s verb for “performeth” shares a root with שָׁלוֹם (shalom, wholeness), while the next line names the dread of seeing the appointed course completed.
THE MEANING
What is appointed for you lies under God’s power to bring to completion, and many such matters remain with him. That certainty can be frightening; the next verse names the response: “Therefore am I troubled.”
THE ROOT
יַשְׁלִם
yashlim
GROWS FROM
שלם
sh-l-m
Be complete or whole; in this verb form, bring to completion, repay, or make good.
“makes whole” in this verse is yashlim. The verb’s root also lives in שָׁלוֹם (shalom), meaning wholeness, and in words for completing or repaying. English “performeth” hides this family resemblance; the surrounding lines make clear that completion does not necessarily feel like comfort.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Wholeness, well-being
שָׁלוֹם
The shared root links completion with wholeness, adding depth to “performeth” without making Job’s appointed course feel easy.
shillēm: Repay, recompense, make good
שִׁלֵּם
This branch shows the root can carry the sense of settling or bringing something to its due completion.
חֻקִּי
ḥuqqî
GROWS FROM
חקק
ḥ-q-q
Cut or inscribe; by extension, establish or prescribe a decree, limit, or portion.
“the allotted portion” in this verse is ḥuqqî. The word translated “appointed” carries the force of a prescribed share or boundary, not merely an unspecified event. The verse speaks of a course already marked out, then widens the weight of it with “many such things.”
ALSO GROWS
ḥōq: A prescribed portion, limit, or statute
חֹק
This is the noun behind “my appointed” thing, giving the phrase the sense of a set share or boundary.
meḥoqeq: One who decrees; a lawgiver
מְחֹקֵק
This related word shows the root’s movement from inscribing or setting a limit to the one who establishes it.
THE PATTERN
What is appointed under God’s authority reaches completion, even when the one living it cannot see the whole or feel at ease in it.
The LORD finishes what concerns me; your faithful love, O LORD, endures for the ages; do not let the works of your hands drop.Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient days the things not yet made, saying, My counsel will stand, and all that I delight in I will make.Being confident of this very thing, that the one who began a good work in you will finish it until the day of Jesus the Anointed One.THE THREAD
So was finished all the work that king Solomon made for the house of the LORD. And Solomon brought in the things which David his father had set apart, even the silver, and the gold, and the vessels, and he set them among the storehouses of the house of the LORD.Job’s יַשְׁלִם (yashlim, “brings to completion”) and 1 Kings’ וַתִּשְׁלַם (vattishlam, “was completed”) share the root שלם (sh-l-m, completion and wholeness). In Kings, it marks a building project brought to its finish; in Job, it describes God completing the prescribed portion that troubles the speaker.
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