What Does Job 23:6 Mean?
Will he contend with me in great power? No; he would set strength in me.
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
Will he plead against me with his great power? No; but he would put strength in me.THE KEY
The power Job fears might be turned against him becomes strength placed within him.
THE MEANING
When you fear that God’s power stands against you, this verse answers with another movement: strength is placed within you. What could feel like opposition becomes support from inside.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that God’s greatness must mean a greater force arrayed against you; here, his power strengthens you from within.
THE ROOT
יָשִׂים
yasim
GROWS FROM
שִׂים
sim
To put, place, or set.
The word describes strength being set inside the speaker. The verse presents divine power as an inward placement, not simply a force acting from outside.
ALSO GROWS
sam: He placed or set.
שָׂם
This form makes the root’s concrete sense of placing clear: strength is set within the person.
simu: Set or place, addressed to a group.
שִׂימוּ
The same root can describe an act of placing; here, what is placed is strength within the speaker.
יָרִיב
yariv
GROWS FROM
רִיב
riv
To contend, dispute, or bring a case.
“contend with” in this verse is yariv. The question imagines God’s power as opposition in a dispute, but the answer turns away from that image. The verse moves from feared contention to strength placed within.
ALSO GROWS
riv: A dispute or contention.
רִיב
This noun carries the conflict implied by the speaker’s question.
merivah: A quarrel or contention.
מְרִיבָה
This branch keeps the sense of active conflict in view, sharpening the contrast with the inward support that follows.
THE PATTERN
Divine strength reaches the faint by being imparted within them, not wielded against them.
He gives power to the faint, and to those without might he multiplies strength.That he would give you, according to the riches of his weight, to be made firm with strength through his breath in the inner humankind.THE THREAD
In the day I cry out, you answer me, and you stir me with strength in my living soul.Job says strength is put “in me”; this verse locates strength within the person as well. Both describe help as an inward strengthening rather than a force brought against the one who cries out.
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