What Does Job 28:10 Mean?
He cuts out channels among the rocks, and his eye sees every weighty thing.
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
He cutteth out rivers among the rocks; and his eye seeth every precious thing.THE KEY
The hand cuts a way through stone, and the eye discovers value that was already hidden inside it.
THE MEANING
You can cut a way through what appears solid, and your eye can find what is precious beneath its surface. The value is already there before you uncover it; the opening reveals it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse loosens the assumption that what matters must be obvious: preciousness can be present inside what first looks like solid rock.
THE ROOT
בִּקֵּעַ
biqqēaʿ
GROWS FROM
בקע
To split open, cleave, or break through.
“cutteth out” in this verse is biqqēaʿ. This is the verb for opening a passage through something solid. Elsewhere the same root describes waters splitting apart, so the verse’s rivers are not merely found among the rocks: a way is opened for them.
ALSO GROWS
wayyibbāqəʿû: The waters were split open (Exodus 14:21).
וַיִּבָּקְעוּ
The same action that opens a way through rock can divide waters, linking the cut channels here with passage through an apparent barrier.
nivqeʿu: They were broken open (Genesis 7:11).
נִבְקְעוּ
The root can describe hidden depths breaking open, echoing how this verse brings what lies within the rock into view.
יְקָר
yəqār
GROWS FROM
יקר
To be precious, costly, or held in high regard.
“weighty thing” in this verse is yəqār. The word for what the eye finds in the rock belongs to the same root that can name honor or esteem. The verse’s value is material here, yet the root also reaches toward what is treasured in regard.
ALSO GROWS
yāqār: Precious or costly.
יָקָר
This is the familiar description of the valuable thing brought into sight in Job 28:10.
yəqār: Honor or esteem, as in Esther 8:16.
יְקָר
The branch shows that preciousness can name what is valued and honored, not only an object with a price.
עֵינוֹ
ʿênô
GROWS FROM
עין
Eye; the same Hebrew word also names a spring or source of water.
Hebrew uses עַיִן (ʿayin) for both an eye and a spring, giving sight an echo of a source that opens out. Beside the channels cut through rock, the word joins bringing water into view with bringing hidden value into view.
ALSO GROWS
ʿayin: Eye.
עַיִן
Here the eye sees what was concealed within the rock.
ʿayin: Spring or fountain.
עַיִן
This shared word-form adds a water-source resonance to a verse already describing channels among the rocks.
THE PATTERN
What lies hidden beneath the surface becomes visible through searching and disclosure.
He uncovers the depths out of darkness, and brings out to light the deepest darkness.If you seek her as silver, and dig for her as for hidden treasure.Again, the governance of the heavens is like a treasure hidden in a field, which, when a man has found, he hides; and in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.THE THREAD
Coral and crystal are never remembered, and the drawing of wisdom is above pearls.Job 28:10 uses יְקָר (yəqār) for the precious thing the eye finds in stone; verse 18 uses the same root to describe wisdom’s value. The chapter turns the miner’s ability to uncover treasure into a measure of what is more precious still.
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