What Does Job 33:13 Mean?
Why do you strive against him? For he does not answer for any of his 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
Why dost thou strive against him? for he giveth not account of any of his matters.THE KEY
“Matters” translates דְּבָרָיו (dĕvarav, “his words/matters”), from the same root as “speaketh” in the next verse.
THE MEANING
When you press God for a full account, this verse names a limit: not every divine matter comes with an explanation you can grasp. Yet the next line says God speaks; what is not fully accounted for is not necessarily absent from what you may perceive.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that every act of God must be fully explained to you before it can be real.
THE ROOT
דְּבָרָיו
dĕvarav
GROWS FROM
דבר
d-b-r
To speak; a word or matter.
“words” in this verse is dĕvarav. The Hebrew דָּבָר (dābār) can mean both “word” and “matter” or “thing.” The KJV’s “matters” therefore carries an echo of speech: what God does and what God says meet in the same word-family.
ALSO GROWS
dābār: Word, matter, or thing.
דָּבָר
Its range lets “matters” hold both what is spoken and what is done.
dibbēr: He spoke.
דִּבֵּר
This verb from the same root appears in the next verse, where God speaks even though the hearer may not perceive it.
רִיבוֹתָ
rîvotā
GROWS FROM
ריב
r-y-b
To contend, dispute, or bring a case.
“strive” in this verse is rîvotā. This root can carry the force of a dispute or legal complaint, so the verse pictures more than private frustration: it presents a person contending with God and pressing for an answer. That gives the question its edge, the demand for an account is part of the contention itself.
ALSO GROWS
rîb: Dispute, contention, or legal case.
רִיב
The noun makes clear that “strive” can describe a claim brought against someone.
mĕrîvāh: Quarrel or contention.
מְרִיבָה
This related form echoes the verse’s image of a dispute between the reader and God.
THE PATTERN
God’s ways exceed the human demand to account for them, even while revelation remains real.
The hidden things belong to the LORD our God, but the uncovered things belong to us and to our children for the ages, that we may do all the words of this instruction.Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised; and his greatness cannot be searched out.O the depth of the riches of both wisdom and knowledge of God! How beyond searching out are his judgments, and how beyond tracking are his ways!THE THREAD
For God speaks in one, and in two he does not repeat; yet man does not perceive it.Job 33:13 uses דְּבָרָיו (dĕvarav, “his words/matters”), from the root דבר (d-b-r); יְדַבֶּר (yĕdabbēr, “he speaks”) in the next line comes from that same root. The sequence holds two things together: God does not give an account of every matter, yet speaks in ways the reader may not perceive.
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