What Does Job 34:27 Mean?

Because they turn aside from behind him, and do not consider all his ways.

Job 34:27 · 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

Because they turned back from him, and would not consider any of his ways:

THE KEY

The verse treats turning away from God and losing the insight to read his path as one movement.

THE MEANING

When you turn from God, the loss reaches into perception: his ways are no longer discerned as a coherent path. The verse joins distance from him with failure to understand the course before you.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

It undoes the belief that turning away from God leaves your understanding of his ways untouched.

THE ROOT

הִשְׂכִּילוּ

hiśkîlû

GROWS FROM

שכל

⁨שָׂכַל⁩ (śākal): to discern with insight or act wisely; here, to understand.

“do not consider” in this verse is hiśkîlû. English consider can sound like pausing to think; this verb reaches into discernment and wise understanding. The verse describes more than a failure to look at God’s ways: it describes a failure to perceive their pattern.

ALSO GROWS

śēkhel: insight, intelligence, understanding

שֵׂכֶל

This names the discernment missing from their response to God’s ways.

maśkīl: one who is discerning or prudent; also a term for a reflective or skillful composition

מַשְׂכִּיל

This branch shows the root’s connection to cultivated understanding, rather than mere observation.

דְּרָכָיו

derāḵāw

GROWS FROM

דרך

⁨דָּרַךְ⁩ (dāraḵ): to tread, step, or travel a path.

English ways can sound like a set of principles. The Hebrew carries the image of a road made and traveled by walking, so what goes unread is the course of God’s action.

ALSO GROWS

déreḵ: way, road, path, course

דֶּרֶךְ

The verse’s ways carry the sense of a route to be discerned, not just abstract rules.

dāraḵ: to tread or step

דָּרַךְ

The verb holds the footfall inside the idea of a way: a path is a course traveled.

THE PATTERN

Turning away from God changes what can be perceived as the true path.

Therefore you shall guard to do as the LORD your God has commanded you. You shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left.

Deuteronomy 5:32 · SDVThe verse frames staying with God’s instruction as keeping to the path without veering.

Do not bend to the right or to the left; remove your foot from harm.

Proverbs 4:27 · SDVThe direction of the foot makes the inner choice visible as a change of path.

And they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to myths.

2 Timothy 4:4 · SDVTurning away in what is heard redirects the listener toward a different account of reality.

THE THREAD

I do not turn aside from your judgments, for you aim me.

Psalm 119:102 · SDV

The Hebrew verb for departed comes from ⁨סוּר⁩ (sûr, turn aside or depart), the same root as turned back in Job. Here, being taught by God marks the opposite movement: his instruction keeps the path from going unread.

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