What Does Job 31:1 Mean?
I cut a covenant with my eyes; why then should I gaze upon a maiden?
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 made a covenant with mine eyes; why then should I think upon a maid?THE KEY
The verse places its covenant at the first threshold of desire: what the gaze keeps returning to has already begun to shape the inner life.
THE MEANING
Your attention is not neutral; what you keep before your eyes begins to shape the direction of desire. The verse names a prior boundary, a covenant with the eyes, then asks why the gaze would dwell on a maid. Its living force is that desire’s direction can be seen before it becomes outward conduct.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that a look is harmless as long as no action follows is undone here: the verse treats sustained attention as an inward choice with consequence.
THE ROOT
אֶתְבּוֹנֵן
’etbonēn
GROWS FROM
בין
To discern, distinguish, or understand.
“gaze upon” in this verse is ’etbonēn. The Hebrew verb carries the sense of looking attentively and considering, from the root of discernment. What English can make sound like abstract thought is a gaze that attends, sorts, and begins to shape desire.
ALSO GROWS
bin: Discern; distinguish; understand.
בִּין
This root sense is the engine inside “think upon”: the gaze is also an act of attending and discerning.
tevunah: Understanding; discernment.
תְּבוּנָה
From the same root, this word shows how attention can become inward understanding and shape what the mind perceives.
כָּרַתִּי
karatti
GROWS FROM
כרת
To cut or cut off.
The Hebrew says, literally, “I cut a covenant” with my eyes. Commitment is pictured as a deliberate boundary formed before the moment of desire, giving the gaze a limit.
ALSO GROWS
karat: To cut; to cut off.
כָּרַת
This is the verb used in the verse’s phrase “cut a covenant,” making the commitment sound like a marked boundary rather than a passing thought.
keritut: Cutting off; a certificate of divorce.
כְּרִיתוּת
This related word shares the root of cutting and shows how a cut can mark separation; here, the cut marks a prior commitment.
THE PATTERN
What the gaze repeatedly attends to shapes the direction and condition of the inner life.
Make my eyes pass over the sight of emptiness, and bring me to life in your way.Let your eyes gaze ahead, and let your eyelids be straight before you.The lamp of the body is the eye. So if your eye is single, your whole body will be full of light.THE THREAD
But I say to you, whoever looks at a woman to crave her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.Jesus makes explicit what Job’s question already exposes: looking with desire has an inward consequence before an outward act. Job’s covenant sets the boundary at the eye, where that inner direction begins to take shape.
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