What Does Job 31:25 Mean?
If I have rejoiced because my strength is great, and because my hand has reached much;
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
If I rejoiced because my wealth was great, and because mine hand had gotten much;THE KEY
The verse tests whether joy rests on chayil, force and capacity gathered by the hand.
THE MEANING
This line exposes how your joy can become attached to what your hands have gathered. Abundance may be present, but the verse asks whether its increase is what makes your heart rejoice.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
More in your hand does not prove that you have more reason to rejoice.
THE ROOT
חֵילִי
ḥêlî
GROWS FROM
ח־י־ל
Force, strength, or capacity; by extension, resources and wealth.
“strength” in this verse is ḥêlî. The word translated “wealth” also carries the sense of force and capability. The verse examines whether joy has become attached to the power your hands have gathered.
ALSO GROWS
ish chayil: A person of strength or capability; rendered “able men” in Exodus 18:21.
אִישׁ חַיִל
The same word can describe personal capacity, showing that chayil reaches beyond material riches.
eshet chayil: A woman of strength and worth; rendered “virtuous woman” in Proverbs 31:10.
אֵשֶׁת חַיִל
Here the same word names qualities in a person, widening the verse’s picture of what chayil can hold.
מָצְאָה
māṣəʾāh
GROWS FROM
מ־צ־א
To find, encounter, or attain.
“had gotten” in this verse is māṣəʾāh. The Hebrew says that the hand “found” much. This verb also describes finding favor, placing what the hand acquires alongside a kind of finding that cannot be reduced to possessions.
ALSO GROWS
māṣāʾ: To locate or find, as in Job’s longing to find God in Job 23:3.
מָצָא
It echoes the verse’s image of the hand finding an abundance.
māṣāʾ ḥēn: To find favor, as Noah does in Genesis 6:8.
מָצָא חֵן
The same root describes finding favor as well as acquiring much, separating a person’s standing from the size of their holdings.
THE PATTERN
The increase of possessions does not give them the power to secure a person’s joy or trust.
Do not lean your full weight on what presses, and do not become vapor through snatching. If wealth blooms, do not set your heart upon it.The lover of silver is not filled with silver, and the lover of the crowd is not filled with the harvest. This too is vapor.Charge those who are rich in this age, that they not be lifted high in mind, nor set their hope on uncertain riches, but upon the living God, who holds out to us richly all things to feast on.THE THREAD
Who can find a woman of strength? Her price is far above rubies.“Virtuous” here is אֵשֶׁת חַיִל (eshet chayil), sharing the word chayil with Job’s “wealth.” The same root can name a person’s strength and worth, opening the word beyond riches alone.
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