What Does Job 28:15 Mean?
It cannot be given for gold, and silver cannot be weighed out as its price.
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
It cannot be gotten for gold, neither shall silver be weighed for the price thereof.THE KEY
Wisdom’s price uses the language of buying and weighing only to show that no human measure can contain its worth.
THE MEANING
Wisdom is not an asset available to the richest buyer, and even weighed silver cannot set what it is worth. Its value stands beyond exchange and cannot be calculated by the possessions or measures the reader already has.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that enough wealth or calculation can buy wisdom or determine its value.
THE ROOT
מְחִירָהּ
mechirah
GROWS FROM
מכר
m-k-r
Sell or trade; מָכַר (makhar) means “to sell.”
The word translated “price” belongs to the root of selling. Its word-family names selling and something sold, so the verse uses the marketplace’s own terms before showing that wisdom exceeds its exchange.
ALSO GROWS
makhar: to sell
מָכַר
The root verb puts “price” within the language of buying and selling.
mimkar: a sale or thing sold
מִמְכָּר
This branch names what enters an exchange, sharpening the contrast with wisdom that cannot be bought.
יִשָּׁקֵל
yishaqel
GROWS FROM
שקל
sh-q-l
Weigh or balance; שָׁקַל (shaqal) means “to weigh.”
“weighed out as its price” in this verse is yishaqel. The verse makes silver submit to a scale. The same root appears in שֶׁקֶל (sheqel, “a unit of weight”), revealing how directly this line connects price with measurement, and how wisdom exceeds even that measure.
ALSO GROWS
sheqel: a unit of weight, also used as money
שֶׁקֶל
It joins the physical measure of silver to its use in exchange.
mishqal: weight or measure
מִשְׁקָל
This branch names the measurement itself, the very means the verse says cannot establish wisdom’s price.
THE PATTERN
Wisdom’s worth exceeds material wealth, and its source is a gift rather than a commodity.
She is more precious than rubies, and nothing you long for can be made equal to her.But if any of you is left behind in wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all without doubling and without taunting, and it will be given him.THE THREAD
Who can find a woman of strength? Her price is far above rubies.The Hebrew word translated “price” here belongs to the same מכר (makhar, “sell”) root-family as Job’s word for “price.” That shared root links wisdom and the capable woman through the language of trade, while both are valued beyond precious stones.
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