What Does Job 34:16 Mean?
If you have understanding, hear this, and tilt your ear to the voice of my 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
If now thou hast understanding, hear this: hearken to the voice of my words.THE KEY
Understanding shows itself first in the ability to hear what is being said.
THE MEANING
This verse meets you where understanding is claimed or tested: it calls for careful hearing before a response. Discernment is present as attention to the voice, not distance from it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that understanding means already having an answer dissolves here; attention to what is being said comes first.
THE ROOT
שְׁמַע
shema
GROWS FROM
שמע
shama
Hear, attend, respond.
“hear” in this verse is shema. The verse pairs hearing with hearkening, presenting understanding as attentive reception. The root also carries the sense of responding to what is heard, so the words are received as something that calls for an answer.
ALSO GROWS
shemi’ah: Hearing, listening.
שְׁמִיעָה
This branch makes hearing itself an act of attention, the first expression of understanding in the verse.
shemu’ah: A report, news, or tidings, something heard.
שְׁמוּעָה
It shows how what is heard becomes received content, not merely sound passing by.
בִּינָה
binah
GROWS FROM
בין
bein
Discern or distinguish; also used for what is between.
This root gives understanding a shade of discernment: recognizing distinctions rather than merely possessing information. Beside the call to hear, it presents understanding as the capacity to attend and discern what the words mean.
ALSO GROWS
bein: Between, among.
בֵּין
The related sense of “between” evokes discernment as recognizing distinctions.
mevin: Understanding, discerning.
מֵבִין
This branch names the capacity the verse addresses before calling it into attentive hearing.
THE PATTERN
Understanding takes shape through attentive hearing before speech or judgment.
Hear and respond, O Israel. The LORD our God is one LORD.The one who returns a word before he hears it, folly and shame are his.Know this, my beloved brothers. Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to swell.THE THREAD
Hear and respond, O Israel. The LORD our God is one LORD.Job’s שְׁמַע (shema, “hear and respond”) shares its root שמע (shama, “hear, attend”) with Deuteronomy’s opening “Hear.” In both verses, hearing is the hinge between the words spoken and the life that receives them.
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