What Does Job 25:2 Mean?
Rule and dread are with him; he makes wholeness in his heights.
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
Dominion and fear are with him, he maketh peace in his high places.THE KEY
Peace here is wholeness being made, even in the heights where dominion and fear are present.
THE MEANING
The one who holds dominion also makes wholeness in the heights. Fear and peace-making belong to the same sovereign presence, even in the highest realm.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that fear and peace must belong to separate powers: both are held within the same sovereign presence.
THE ROOT
שָׁלוֹם
shalom
GROWS FROM
ש־ל־ם
sh-l-m
To be whole, complete, or sound.
The verse says he makes שָׁלוֹם (shalom, wholeness), so peace is something actively made. This root family joins peace with completeness and well-being, giving the making of peace a restoring force in the heights.
ALSO GROWS
shalem: Whole, complete, sound.
שָׁלֵם
This branch makes the link between peace and completeness visible: the wholeness being made is more than quiet.
shelamim: Well-being offerings, also called peace offerings.
שְׁלָמִים
The same root connects peace with well-being, showing that shalom can name a state of restored wholeness.
THE PATTERN
Wholeness is established by divine action across places marked by fear, distance, or trouble.
The LORD gives strength to his people; the LORD blesses his people with wholeness.I create the fruit of the lips. Wholeness, wholeness to the one far off and to the one near, says the LORD, and I will heal him.Wholeness I leave with you; my wholeness I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be stirred, and do not let it shrink.THE THREAD
I create the fruit of the lips. Wholeness, wholeness to the one far off and to the one near, says the LORD, and I will heal him.Job’s שָׁלוֹם (shalom, wholeness) and Isaiah’s “Peace, peace” come from the same ש־ל־ם (sh-l-m) root. What is made in the heights reaches the far and near alike.
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