What Does Job 34:18 Mean?

Is it fitting to say to a king, You are worthless? To nobles, You are wicked?

Job 34:18 · SDV

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.

This verse in the King James

King James wording

King James Version

Is it fit to say to a king, Thou art wicked? and to princes, Ye are ungodly?

THE KEY

The Hebrew behind “ungodly” carries the concrete sense “not straight”: the verse weighs a ruler’s conduct against the title they hold.

THE MEANING

The question places serious moral charges beside the titles of king and prince. In the surrounding argument, rank does not win anyone special regard before God. The verse speaks now wherever authority and uprightness are being weighed.

THE ROOT

לֹא־יָשָׁר

lo-yashar

GROWS FROM

י־ש־ר

y-sh-r

to be straight, level, or right

“wicked” in this verse is lo-yashar. The phrase translated “ungodly” is lo-yashar, “not straight/right.” The same root gives words for uprightness and level ground, making the charge a picture of conduct measured for straightness.

ALSO GROWS

yosher: uprightness, integrity

יֹשֶׁר

It names the quality the accusation says is missing.

mishor: level ground; a level or even way

מִישׁוֹר

Its image of levelness makes moral straightness tangible.

THE PATTERN

Rank does not bend divine judgment toward the powerful.

How much less to him who does not lift up the face of princes, nor regards the rich above the poor? For they all are the work of his hands.

Job 34:19 · SDVThe verse states that princes and poor alike stand before a judge who gives rank no special weight.

Then Peter opened his mouth and said, In truth I have laid hold of this, that God lifts no one's face.

Acts 10:34 · SDVThe same principle appears as the recognition that God does not favor one person over another.

For there is no partiality with God.

Romans 2:11 · SDVThe statement makes impartial judgment a consistent feature of God’s character.

THE THREAD

In all your ways, perceive him, and he straightens your paths.

Proverbs 3:6 · SDV

Job calls the princes lo-yashar, “not straight”; Proverbs uses the same root when God makes paths straight. The shared root links crooked conduct with a way brought into alignment.

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