What Does Job 30:10 Mean?
They recoil from me, keep far away, and do not hold back spittle from my face.
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
They abhor me, they flee far from me, and spare not to spit in my face.THE KEY
They flee from him at a distance, yet bring their contempt close enough to spit in his face.
THE MEANING
You can be treated as repellent, kept at a distance, and still have contempt pressed directly onto your body. The verse names that cruelty without disguising it: rejection becomes a spit in the face, an assault on the place where your presence meets another person.
THE ROOT
מִפְּנֵי
mippeney
GROWS FROM
פנה
Turn, face toward; by extension, face or presence.
The Hebrew places the spit “from before my face,” making the insult direct and bodily. The face carries the sense of presence: they withdraw from him, yet violate the very presence they avoid.
ALSO GROWS
panim: Face; presence.
פָּנִים
The spitting targets the place where a person is visibly present to others.
panah: Turn; face toward.
פָּנָה
This turn toward sharpens the verse’s contrast between fleeing away and directing an insult at his face.
lifnei: Before; in the presence of.
לִפְנֵי
The phrase “from before my face” puts the humiliation within his immediate presence.
רָחֲקוּ
rachaqu
GROWS FROM
רחק
Be or become far; withdraw into distance.
“keep far away” in this verse is rachaqu. The same root underlies both the act of going far away and the state of being distant. Yet the next image collapses that distance: their bodies withdraw, while their contempt reaches his face.
ALSO GROWS
rachoq: Far; distant.
רָחוֹק
This is the distance they create between themselves and the speaker.
merchaq: Distance; a far-off place.
מֶרְחָק
The word makes their withdrawal spatial, so the spitting that follows feels especially direct.
THE PATTERN
Contempt can turn rejection into direct bodily humiliation.
All who see me mock me; they open their lips, they shake the head.I have given my back to the strikers, and my cheeks to those who pluck out the hair. I have not hidden my face from shame and spitting.Then they spat in his face and struck him with their fists, and others slapped him with the palms of their hands.THE THREAD
Then they spat in his face and struck him with their fists, and others slapped him with the palms of their hands.Both verses put the same violence in view: contempt takes bodily form as spit on the face. The insult crosses the distance its contempt tries to keep.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us