What Does Job 27:23 Mean?
Men clap their hands at him, and hiss him from his place.
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
Men shall clap their hands at him, and shall hiss him out of his place.THE KEY
The Hebrew verb for “hiss” can also mean a whistle that summons, so the same sound can expel in Job and gather elsewhere.
THE MEANING
Public contempt carries this force: a crowd’s clapping and hissing can mark someone as unwanted and push them from their place. Ridicule becomes an act of exclusion, turning sound into a boundary.
THE ROOT
יִשְׁרְקֻהוּ
yishreqūhu
GROWS FROM
שרק
sharaq
To whistle or hiss with a sharp, sibilant call; depending on context, the sound can signal scorn or summon someone.
English makes “hiss” sound like mere mockery, but שרק (sharaq) can also be a call that gathers. The verb shifts from driving a man from his place here to summoning scattered people in Isaiah and Zechariah.
ALSO GROWS
yishreqūhu: A crowd whistles at him in scorn.
יִשְׁרְקֻהוּ
In this verse the sharp call marks his rejection and drives him from his place.
veshāraq lo: A whistle signals for someone to come.
וְשָׁרַק לוֹ
Isaiah uses the same root for a call that brings people from far away, showing the sound can summon as well as shame.
ve’eshreqah lahem: A call made to gather people.
וְאֶשְׁרְקָה לָהֶם
In Zechariah, the same verb becomes a summons that gathers the scattered rather than casting someone out.
THE PATTERN
A crowd can use sound to cast a person out, while a sharp call can also summon the scattered into a people.
All who see me mock me; they open their lips, they shake the head.And those passing by reviled him, shaking their heads, and saying, Ah, you who would loosen the temple, and build it in three days,I will whistle for them and gather them, for I have ransomed them, and they will multiply as they have multiplied.THE THREAD
I will whistle for them and gather them, for I have ransomed them, and they will multiply as they have multiplied.The verb שרק (sharaq), “to whistle or hiss,” appears in both verses: here the crowd’s whistle sends a man from his place, while in Zechariah God whistles for the scattered and gathers them. The same sound carries rejection in one passage and welcome in the other.
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