What Does Job 29:23 Mean?
And they waited for me as for rain, and split their mouths open as for the late rain.
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
And they waited for me as for the rain; and they opened their mouth wide as for the latter rain.THE KEY
The open mouth shows that Job’s words are awaited as rain: the listeners are already leaning toward what can replenish them.
THE MEANING
Here, waiting is hope turned toward what can nourish. The hearers open their mouths wide before the latter rain, giving the longing to receive a visible shape. The verse speaks now wherever attention becomes hunger for words that replenish.
THE ROOT
יִחֲלוּ
yiḥălû
GROWS FROM
יחל
To wait, hope, or look toward what is expected.
English “waited” can sound passive, but יחל carries hope and expectation. The people are oriented toward Job as people look toward rain they need.
ALSO GROWS
yāḥal: To wait or hope.
יָחַל
This verb makes the listeners’ waiting an expectant posture, not mere delay.
tōḥelet: Hope or expectation.
תּוֹחֶלֶת
This noun from the same root names the inward anticipation that the verse pictures through the rain.
מָטָר
māṭār
GROWS FROM
מטר
Rain; to rain or cause rain.
The rain image carries both what is received and the act that brings it. Job’s words are pictured as something arriving from above to meet an open need.
ALSO GROWS
māṭār: Rain.
מָטָר
This is the rain for which the hearers wait, the verse’s image of replenishment.
himṭîr: To cause rain to fall.
הִמְטִיר
The related verb shows the same root describing rain as something given or sent down, not produced by the waiting field.
פָּעֲרוּ
pāʿărû
GROWS FROM
פער
To gape or open wide.
“split their mouths open” in this verse is pāʿărû. The Hebrew verb is stronger than an ordinary opening: it is to gape wide. The listeners’ longing becomes visible in their posture, and the same root elsewhere pictures a mouth opened in yearning.
ALSO GROWS
pāʿar: To gape or open wide.
פָּעַר
This is the root verb beneath “opened their mouth wide,” making the image one of eager receptivity.
pāʿartî: I opened wide; “I opened my mouth” (Psalm 119:131).
פָּעַרְתִּי
The same root describes a mouth opened in longing, linking Job’s listeners’ expectancy to the psalmist’s desire.
THE PATTERN
Longing opens the receiver toward what can replenish it.
I am the LORD your God, who brought you up from the land of Egypt. Widen your mouth, and I will fill it.And I will give you the rain of your land in its season, the first rain and the late rain, so that you may gather in your grain, your wine, and your oil.Be slow to heat therefore, brethren, until the arrival of the LORD. Look, the one who works the soil waits for the costly fruit of the earth, and is slow to heat over it until he takes in the early and late rain.THE THREAD
I open my mouth and pant, for I long for your commands.Job’s listeners open their mouths with the root פער, and the psalmist uses that same root for opening his mouth in longing. In both verses, the opened mouth reveals desire before fullness arrives: rain here, instruction there.
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