What Does Job 29:15 Mean?
I was eyes to the blind, and feet to the one who limps.
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
I was eyes to the blind, and feet was I to the lame.THE KEY
The Hebrew root pāsaḥ (פסח, limp or halt unevenly) names both the lame person here and the halting between paths in 1 Kings 18:21, so the speaker becomes a steadier step for someone whose movement falters.
THE MEANING
When your sight or movement falls short, another person can become the capacity you cannot reach on your own. This verse presents care as embodied presence: one person lends sight or movement where another’s body cannot carry it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a limitation must be borne alone; here, another person can take up the very function that is missing.
THE ROOT
פִּסֵּחַ
pissēaḥ
GROWS FROM
פסח
pāsaḥ
To limp or halt with an uneven step; in some contexts, to spring or leap.
“one who limps” in this verse is pissēaḥ. פִּסֵּחַ (pissēaḥ, lame) belongs to פסח (pāsaḥ, limp or halt unevenly), the same root used for “halt” between two opinions. Physical unsteadiness and a halting course share one word-family, so the speaker’s “feet” answer a faltering stride with steadier presence.
ALSO GROWS
pissēaḥ: One whose step is uneven or impaired.
פִּסֵּחַ
This is the word rendered “lame” here; the verse centers care on a faltering capacity for movement.
tipseḥu: To halt or limp between two things.
תִּפְסְחוּ
In 1 Kings 18:21 this form is rendered “halt” between two opinions, linking physical faltering with a wavering course.
עֵינַיִם
ʿênayim
GROWS FROM
עין
ʿayin
Eye; the same word also names a spring or fountain.
“eyes” in this verse is ʿênayim. עַיִן (ʿayin, eye) also names a spring or fountain, an opening where what is hidden emerges. The speaker does more than point out what another cannot see: he becomes an opening through which perception reaches them.
ALSO GROWS
ʿayin: The organ of sight.
עַיִן
The speaker becomes this capacity for someone who cannot see.
maʿyan: A source or flow of water.
מַעְיָן
This related form extends the eye image into an opening through which something hidden can flow into view.
THE PATTERN
Wholeness becomes tangible when support meets a body’s interrupted capacity.
Your words have raised up the one who was falling, and you have made firm the knees that bend.Then the limping one leaps like a hart, and the tongue of the mute rings out. For waters split open in the wilderness, and streams in the desert plain.Jesus answered and said to them, Go, and tell John what you have seen and heard, that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are roused, and the good news is brought to the emptied.THE THREAD
And Elijah came to all the people, and said, How long will you limp on two branches? If the LORD is God, walk after him, but if Baal, then walk after him. And the people answered him not a word.The Hebrew verb translated “halt” comes from פסח (pāsaḥ, limp or halt unevenly), the root behind “lame” in Job 29:15. One passage applies the faltering step to a person’s body; the other applies it to a divided course.
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