What Does Job 34:31 Mean?
For it is fitting to say to God, I have borne chastisement, I will not add any more.
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
Surely it is meet to be said unto God, I have borne chastisement, I will not offend any more:THE KEY
The verse joins what has been carried with a refusal to carry harm forward.
THE MEANING
The weight already borne is real, and the harm need not continue. What has happened does not have to dictate what happens next.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that being chastened only names what has happened; the verse also names a refusal to keep doing harm.
THE ROOT
נָשָׂאתִי
nasa'ti
GROWS FROM
נשא
nasa
To lift, carry, or bear.
“I have borne chastisement” in this verse is nasa'ti. The word carries the sense of bearing weight, giving force to the speaker’s acknowledgment of what has been borne. Its family also names a burden and one who is lifted, keeping carrying and lifting within the same root.
ALSO GROWS
massa: A burden or load.
מַשָּׂא
This branch makes the weight in “I have borne” tangible.
nasi: A prince or leader; literally, one lifted up.
נָשִׂיא
This branch shows the root’s other movement: what is carried or lifted can also describe one raised up.
אֶחֱבֹל
echbol
GROWS FROM
חבל
chabal
To bind or pledge; in another attested use, to damage or ruin.
“add” in this verse is echbol. The verb translated “offend” can carry the force of doing damage or ruining. The speaker’s words therefore name an end to continued harm, not merely an intention to avoid a minor slip.
ALSO GROWS
chevel: A cord or rope.
חֶבֶל
This branch carries the root’s sense of binding.
mechabbelim: Destroyers or spoilers.
מְחַבְּלִים
This branch shows the root’s force in the sense of damaging or ruining.
THE PATTERN
Naming what has been borne alongside a refusal to continue harm opens a path toward release.
I make my falling short known to you, and my crookedness I do not cover. I say, I will speak my rebellion into the open before the LORD, and you release the crookedness of my falling short. Selah.Bathe, and become clear. Remove the harm of your deeds from before my eyes. Let go of doing harm.If we speak our shortcomings into the open, he is steady and aligned, to release our shortcomings, and to cleanse us from all crookedness.THE THREAD
Surely he has borne our sicknesses, and carried our wounds. Yet we reckoned him struck, beaten by God, and bowed low.Job’s “I have borne” and Isaiah’s “he hath borne” share נשא (nasa), to carry or bear. The same root holds both the weight one bears and the carrying of another’s grief.
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