What Does Job 34:2 Mean?
Hear and respond to my words, O wise men, and tilt your ear to me, you who 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
Hear my words, O ye wise men; and give ear unto me, ye that have knowledge.THE KEY
Here, wisdom is shown as an ear still open to another voice.
THE MEANING
You are addressed as someone who knows, and the verse still places listening at the center of that knowing. Wisdom remains open to another’s words; what you know stays alive when it can receive.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that having knowledge means having nothing left to hear.
THE ROOT
שִׁמְעוּ
shim'u
GROWS FROM
שמע
Hear, listen, heed.
“hear and respond” in this verse is shim'u. The verse calls people already named wise and knowing to hear, then repeats the call with “give ear.” Shama can carry listening that heeds, so the address holds reception and response together.
ALSO GROWS
shema: Hear, listen.
שְׁמַע
The same root opens Deuteronomy’s call to hear, showing listening as an active beginning, not a mark of ignorance.
shemuah: A report or something heard.
שְׁמוּעָה
This branch links hearing to receiving words from another, as the wise men receive Elihu’s words here.
הַאֲזִינוּ
ha'azinu
GROWS FROM
אזן
Ear; listen or give attention.
“tilt your ear to me” in this verse is ha'azinu. The second verb makes listening an embodied image: the hearers are asked to turn their ears toward a voice. Hebrew keeps the ear and the act of listening in one word-family, giving attention a bodily closeness.
ALSO GROWS
ozen: Ear.
אֹזֶן
The body part gives “give ear” its concrete image of attentive reception.
ha'azin: Listen, give ear.
הַאֲזִין
This verb from the same root makes hearing an act of directed attention, echoing the verse’s repeated call to listen.
יֹדְעִים
yode'im
GROWS FROM
ידע
Know, recognize, perceive.
“you who know” in this verse is yode'im. The Hebrew phrase is “those knowing,” from yada. This root can carry recognition and encounter as well as information, so the people addressed as knowers are still called into fresh knowing through what they hear.
ALSO GROWS
yada: Know, recognize, perceive.
יָדַע
The root connects knowledge with active recognition, rather than a store of facts that closes the listener to new words.
da'at: Knowledge, understanding.
דַּעַת
This noun from the same root links what the hearers possess to the ongoing act of knowing.
THE PATTERN
Understanding stays alive when the one who knows remains ready to hear.
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.Both verses use שָׁמַע (shama, hear): Job addresses the wise as hearers, and Deuteronomy opens with the same call. The shared root lets hearing carry the sense of attentive reception, not sound alone.
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