What Does Job 32:14 Mean?
Now he has not laid out his words against me, and I will not turn him back with your words.
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
Now he hath not directed his words against me: neither will I answer him with your speeches.THE KEY
A reply is a return, and Elihu refuses to send back another person’s words as though they were his own answer.
THE MEANING
A sentence can reach you without being directed to you, and that distinction matters before a reply takes shape. Here, the answer is a return, yet the speaker declines to send others’ phrasing back as his own. The verse draws a boundary between what is actually addressed and what is merely available to repeat.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that every available phrase is yours to return dissolves here; words spoken by others do not automatically become your answer.
THE ROOT
אֲשִׁיבֶנּוּ
ʾăšîḇennû
GROWS FROM
שׁוּב
shuv
to turn or return
“turn him back” in this verse is ʾăšîḇennû. The verb translated “answer” grows from שׁוּב (shuv, “to turn or return”). The reply is pictured as something sent back, so Elihu’s refusal is precise: he will not return the others’ wording as his own response.
ALSO GROWS
shuv: turn, return
שׁוּב
This basic verb makes the return-motion inside “answer” visible.
hēshīv: bring back, restore, answer
הֵשִׁיב
This related form can describe bringing something back or answering, linking a spoken reply with a return.
עָרַךְ
ʿārakh
GROWS FROM
ערך
ʿ-r-kh
to arrange, set in order, array
“laid out” in this verse is ʿārakh. The word translated “directed” also carries the sense of arranging or arraying, including setting out a battle formation. The image lets words feel like an ordered line placed before someone; Elihu declines to deploy his companions’ line of speech in reply.
ALSO GROWS
ʿōrēkh: one who arranges or sets in order
עֹרֵךְ
This form preserves the sense of speech deliberately laid out rather than sent without shape.
maʿărāḵāh: array, formation
מַעֲרָכָה
This branch carries the ordered-line image, sharpening the force of words directed toward someone.
THE PATTERN
A fitting reply follows what has actually been heard and addressed instead of reflexively returning whatever words are available.
The one who returns a word before he hears it, folly and shame are his.A time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to hush, and a time to speak.Know this, my beloved brothers. Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to swell.THE THREAD
So shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth. It shall not return to me empty, but shall do what I delight in, and shall break through in the thing to which I sent it.Job’s verb for “answer” grows from שׁוּב (shuv, “return”); Isaiah uses that same root for the word that “return[s]” after going forth. One verse shows a human reply as returned speech, while the other follows a word on its journey out and back.
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