What Does Job 32:6 Mean?
And Elihu, son of Barachel the Buzite, answered and said, I am young, and you are very old. Therefore I was afraid, and I dared not show you 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
And Elihu the son of Barachel the Buzite answered and said, I am young, and ye are very old; wherefore I was afraid, and durst not shew you mine opinion.THE KEY
Fear does not erase what you know; it hides it from the people who feel larger than you.
THE MEANING
You can carry knowledge and still hold it back when age or authority makes the room feel larger than your own voice. You shrink back, fear rises, and what you know stays hidden. Silence here is not proof of emptiness; it is knowledge under pressure.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that silence proves you have nothing to say; fear can hide knowledge without making it disappear.
THE ROOT
דֵּעִי
deʿî
GROWS FROM
ידע
To know or perceive.
“what I know” in this verse is deʿî. The Hebrew word is “my knowledge,” from the root for knowing and perceiving. What stays hidden is something known, not merely a passing opinion.
ALSO GROWS
daʿat: knowledge
דַּעַת
This noun from the same root clarifies that the withheld “opinion” is presented as knowledge.
yodeaʿ: one who knows
יֹדֵעַ
This form makes the link between knowing and the knowledge kept from view explicit.
וָאִירָא
vaʾira
GROWS FROM
ירא
To fear or revere; fear toward people or danger, and awe when God is the one feared.
“afraid” in this verse is vaʾira. The same root can carry fear or reverence, with its shade shaped by whom one fears. Here the fear is directed toward people, and it stands between knowledge and its being shown.
ALSO GROWS
yirʾah: fear or awe
יִרְאָה
This noun shows the root can name the inward state that accompanies the verse’s withholding.
noraʾ: fearsome; awe-inspiring
נוֹרָא
This related form shows the root can describe what evokes fear, while here the people before Elihu evoke it.
THE PATTERN
Fear of human judgment can turn what is known into withheld speech or action.
The trembling of man sets a snare, but the one who leans his full weight on the LORD is set on high.Even so, many among the rulers also leaned their weight on him, but because of the separated ones they did not confess him, lest they be thrown out of the gathering.For before some came from James, he ate together with the nations. But when they came, he drew back and marked himself off, fearing those from the circumcision.THE THREAD
And he said, I heard your voice in the garden, and I trembled, because I was bare; and I hid myself.Both verses use ירא (yareʾ) for fear. In Genesis, fear ends in hiding the self; here it ends in hiding knowledge, linking bodily concealment with withheld speech.
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