What Does Job 31:30 Mean?
Nor have I let my palate miss the mark, by asking a curse upon his living soul.
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
Neither have I suffered my mouth to sin by wishing a curse to his soul.THE KEY
The verse locates integrity in refusing to give the mouth over to a spoken request for another person’s harm.
THE MEANING
The verse makes speech a point of moral agency: the mouth can be given over to a curse, or kept from asking harm onto another’s living self. The person on the receiving end is not an abstraction; nefesh names a living person, a life.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a wish for someone else’s ruin is harmless as long as no hand carries it out: here, the mouth itself can be given to sin.
THE ROOT
נָתַתִּי
natatti
GROWS FROM
נתן
n-t-n
Give, set, place.
“suffered” in this verse is natatti. The Hebrew says, literally, “I did not give my palate to sin.” The root makes restraint concrete: the mouth is not placed in the service of a curse.
ALSO GROWS
natan: Give, set, place.
נָתַן
This is the verb in the verse: the speaker does not give his mouth over to harmful speech.
mattanah: Gift.
מַתָּנָה
The same root that names giving a gift also describes what the mouth is or is not given over to.
לַחֲטֹא
laḥaṭoʾ
GROWS FROM
חטא
ḥ-ṭ-ʾ
Miss, go wrong.
“miss the mark” in this verse is laḥaṭoʾ. The root gives “sin” the shape of a miss: the mouth can miss its mark by directing a curse at another’s life. The same root also names an offering for the missing, keeping the word connected to what addresses that miss.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāṭāʾ: Miss, sin.
חָטָא
This is the verb’s root form: the palate can be made to miss through the words it releases.
ḥaṭṭāʾt: Missing; an offering for the missing.
חַטָּאת
The related word keeps the root’s sense of missing visible beneath the English word “sin.”
נַפְשׁוֹ
nafshō
GROWS FROM
נפש
n-p-sh
Living self, life.
“living soul” in this verse is nafshō. Nefesh can name the living self, not merely an immaterial inner part. The curse would be aimed at someone’s life, the living person the speaker refuses to target with his words.
ALSO GROWS
nephesh: Living soul, living being, self.
נֶפֶשׁ
This is the word behind “his soul”: the curse is directed at a person’s living self.
naphash: Be refreshed, recover.
נָפַשׁ
This related verb keeps the root’s connection with a living being and its capacity for renewal in view.
THE PATTERN
Integrity in speech refuses to turn hostility into words that call harm onto another person.
Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and do not let your heart leap when he stumbles.But I say to you, love your enemies, speak well over those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who abuse you and pursue you.With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who have been made according to the likeness of God.THE THREAD
With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who have been made according to the likeness of God.Job’s statement keeps the mouth from being turned against another’s life; James exposes how that same tongue can bless God and curse people made in God’s likeness. Together, the verses show the contradiction inside speech that blesses one moment and calls harm the next.
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