What Does Job 31:12 Mean?
For it is a fire that eats down to perishing, and in all my yield it would uproot.
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
For it is a fire that consumeth to destruction, and would root out all mine increase.THE KEY
The fire does not stop at what it touches: it reaches beneath the harvest and uproots what could grow next.
THE MEANING
The sexual betrayal named in the surrounding lines is pictured as a fire that consumes toward loss and uproots all increase. The verse speaks now as a warning that hidden desire can reach both what a life has yielded and what is still growing.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that a private desire can be contained without affecting the rest of life.
THE ROOT
תְּשָׁרֵשׁ
tĕšārēš
GROWS FROM
שׁרשׁ
š-r-š
Root; strike root or uproot, depending on the form.
“uproot” in this verse is tĕšārēš. The verb keeps the image of a root inside the act: the fire reaches the source of further growth, not only the visible fruit. The same root can describe rootedness and the removal of roots, so the loss reaches what might grow next.
ALSO GROWS
šōreš: Root; the source from which growth rises.
שֹׁרֶשׁ
It names the source the fire reaches when it uproots the increase.
šāraš: Take root or strike root.
שָׁרַשׁ
The root can describe growth becoming established; here the fire turns that image toward uprooting.
תֹּאכֵל
tōʾḵēl
GROWS FROM
אכל
ʾ-k-l
Eat, consume.
“eats” in this verse is tōʾḵēl. The fire is given the action of eating: it does not merely flare or threaten, but consumes. The image makes the destruction active and ongoing, moving through what is in its reach.
ALSO GROWS
ʾāḵal: Eat, consume.
אָכַל
This is the same action the verse gives to the fire.
maʾăḵāl: Food; something eaten.
מַאֲכָל
The word family holds both consuming and what is consumed, making the fire’s reach concrete.
אֲבַדּוֹן
ʾăḇaddōn
GROWS FROM
אבד
ʾ-b-d
Perish or become lost.
Abaddon belongs to the word family of perishing and being lost. The fire consumes toward loss, while the following image shows it reaching the roots of future yield too.
ALSO GROWS
ʾāḇaḏ: Perish; be lost.
אָבַד
It gives the underlying movement of the destruction named here.
ʾăḇēḏāh: Loss; something lost.
אֲבֵדָה
It carries the same root into a concrete loss, echoing the verse’s reach over all the increase.
THE PATTERN
A fire admitted at one point spreads beyond its source, consuming what it touches and stripping away its yield.
Can a man scoop fire into his fold, and his garments not be burned?And the tongue is fire, a world of crookedness. It is set among our limbs, staining the whole body and setting the wheel of becoming ablaze, and it is lit by Gehenna.For a fire is kindled in my nostrils, and it burns down to the lowest Sheol; it eats the earth with her yield, and sets ablaze the foundations of the mountains.THE THREAD
Can a man scoop fire into his fold, and his garments not be burned?Both verses use the Hebrew word אֵשׁ (ʾēš), meaning fire. Proverbs asks whether fire can be held close without burning what surrounds it; Job shows its reach extending to the roots of all increase.
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