What Does Job 34:10 Mean?
Therefore, men of heart, listen to me. Far be it from God to do wickedness, and from the Almighty to commit crookedness.
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
Therefore hearken unto me, ye men of understanding: far be it from God, that he should do wickedness; and from the Almighty, that he should commit iniquity.THE KEY
The verse calls its hearers “men of heart” before insisting that divine might and injustice cannot coexist.
THE MEANING
You are addressed as a person whose understanding lives in the heart, and the verse calls you to hear with inward discernment. It presents God’s might as inseparable from justice: wickedness and unjust dealing do not belong to God’s nature.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Might makes any action just; this verse refuses that equation, placing injustice outside God’s nature even when naming the Almighty.
THE ROOT
שִׁמְעוּ
shimʿu
GROWS FROM
שמע
To hear or listen, with the force of heeding and responding when the context calls for it.
“listen” in this verse is shimʿu. English “hearken” can sound like bare attention, but the Hebrew carries heedful listening, the hearing that receives and responds. The listeners are called “men of heart,” so this is inward, discerning attention rather than detached information-gathering.
ALSO GROWS
shamaʿ: Hear, listen, heed.
שָׁמַע
The verb’s range lets the command include responsive attention, not merely sound reaching the ear.
shemuʿah: A report or something heard.
שְׁמוּעָה
This related noun shows the root can name both the act of hearing and what is received through hearing.
לֵבָב
levav
GROWS FROM
לבב
Heart or inner self, including thought, intention, and understanding.
The phrase translated “men of understanding” is literally “men of heart.” Hebrew locates discernment in the heart, joining understanding with the inner person rather than separating thought from the self.
ALSO GROWS
lev: Heart; the inner person.
לֵב
The familiar word for heart also carries thought and intention, widening what “understanding” means here.
ḥakham-lev: Wise-hearted; skillful.
חֲכַם־לֵב
This expression links wisdom and skill with the heart, echoing the verse’s picture of understanding as inward discernment.
עָוֶל
ʿāwel
GROWS FROM
עול
To act unjustly or deal wrongfully.
“crookedness” in this verse is ʿāwel. Here “iniquity” has the specific shade of injustice or wrongful dealing. Paired with wickedness, it names a form of wrong that the verse excludes from God’s nature.
ALSO GROWS
ʿāwal: To act unjustly or deal wrongfully.
עָוַל
The verb makes the noun concrete: the word concerns unjust action, not only an abstract condition.
ʿawlah: Injustice or wrongdoing.
עַוְלָה
This related noun shows the same root naming unjust dealing as a condition or act.
THE PATTERN
God’s power is never a warrant for injustice; strength and just dealing stay joined.
He is the Rock; whole is his work, for all his ways are judgment. A God of faithfulness, without crookedness, aligned and straight is he.To set forth that the LORD is straight; he is my rock, and there is no crookedness in him.Let no one, when tested, say, I am tested from God; for God is untested by evil, and he himself tests no one.THE THREAD
Therefore now let the dread of the LORD be upon you. Guard it and do it, for there is no crookedness with the LORD our God, nor lifting up the face of anyone, nor taking of bribes.Job uses עָוֶל (ʿāwel, injustice), and this verse uses the related עַוְלָה (ʿawlah, injustice). It names partiality and taking gifts as concrete forms of the injustice that Job says does not belong to God.
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