What Does Job 34:3 Mean?
For the ear tests words as the palate tastes food.
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
For the ear trieth words, as the mouth tasteth meat.THE KEY
The ear tests words the way the mouth tests food: hearing is discernment, not mere intake.
THE MEANING
Your hearing is active: words are weighed as they arrive, just as food is tasted before it is swallowed. What sounds convincing is not yet the same as what proves sound.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that hearing a statement makes it trustworthy: the ear has its own work of testing.
THE ROOT
תִּבְחַן
tivchan
GROWS FROM
בחן
To test or examine, including to assay for quality.
“tests” in this verse is tivchan. The root בָּחַן (bāḥan), meaning “to test or examine,” makes the ear an active evaluator of what it receives. English “trieth” can sound like a simple comparison, while the root carries the sense of putting words to a test.
ALSO GROWS
proved: Tested or examined for what is genuinely there.
Job 23:10 uses the same root for being “tried” and coming forth as gold, echoing the image of words being tested for their quality.
try: Put to a test or examination.
Psalm 11:4 uses this root for the LORD testing people, showing that the verse’s kind of listening is careful evaluation.
יִטְעַם
yit'am
GROWS FROM
טעם
To taste; by extension, to discern or judge.
“tasteth” in this verse is yit'am. The root טָעַם (ṭāʿam), meaning “to taste,” also reaches into discernment and judgment. The verse links the mouth’s direct sampling of food with the ear’s examination of words, making discernment something encountered and tested.
ALSO GROWS
taste: Sample food and perceive its quality.
Job 12:11 repeats the pairing of the ear testing words and the mouth tasting food, showing this as a compact image of discernment.
judgment: Discernment or good sense.
Psalm 119:66 uses this root in “good judgment,” revealing the connection between tasting and the ability to distinguish.
THE PATTERN
Discernment tests what it receives through attentive encounter before holding it as good.
O taste and see that the LORD is good. Flourishing is the strong one who takes shelter in him.Test everything, and hold fast to what is good.But firm food is for the complete, for those who through practice have their senses exercised to sift good from evil.THE THREAD
O taste and see that the LORD is good. Flourishing is the strong one who takes shelter in him.Psalm 34:8 uses the same root טָעַם (ṭāʿam), meaning “to taste,” as Job’s image of the mouth tasting food. Here that tasting opens into seeing the LORD’s goodness: discernment begins with direct encounter.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us