What Does Job 32:17 Mean?
I said, I also will answer my portion. I also will show what I know.
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 said, I will answer also my part, I also will shew mine opinion.THE KEY
The opinion here is a portion of knowing brought into view.
THE MEANING
You speak from a particular share of what you know, and the verse treats that share as something you can bring into view. Your words disclose your present understanding, personal and distinct.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that your words need to carry total certainty to have a place: the verse names them as “my part” and “my knowledge.”
THE ROOT
חֶלְקִי
chelqi
GROWS FROM
חלק
ḥ-l-q
to divide, apportion, or share
“My part” is literally a portion: a share within something larger. The root lets you hear Job’s answer as a distinct portion brought into view.
ALSO GROWS
ḥalaq: to divide or apportion
חָלַק
The act of dividing produces shares, giving “my part” the sense of a portion within a whole.
chelqah: a portion or plot of land
חֶלְקָה
A plot is a bounded share of ground, echoing the verse’s language of a particular part.
דֵּעִי
deʿi
GROWS FROM
ידע
to know, recognize, or perceive
“what I know” in this verse is deʿi. The word translated “opinion” is “my knowledge.” Its root carries knowing and perceiving, so Job presents what he will show as understanding he possesses and can disclose.
ALSO GROWS
daʿat: knowledge or understanding
דַּעַת
This noun comes from the same root and makes the knowing inside “my opinion” explicit.
hodiʿa: to make known or inform
הוֹדִיעַ
This causative form turns knowing outward into disclosure, matching the verse’s movement from knowledge to showing it.
THE PATTERN
A person’s distinct share of understanding becomes useful when it is spoken into the whole.
A man has joy in the answer of his mouth, and a word in its season, how good it is!But the showing of the breath is given to each one, for what carries us together.We have gifts that differ according to the favor given to us. If prophecy, let us prophesy in proportion to trust.THE THREAD
The LORD is the portion of my share and of my cup; you hold fast my lot.Job calls his words his חֶלֶק (chelqi, portion), and this psalm uses the same root for the portion of an inheritance. The shared root opens “my part” as a share within something larger.
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