What Does Job 34:32 Mean?
What I do not see, show me. If I have done crookedness, I will add no 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
That which I see not teach thou me: if I have done iniquity, I will do no more.THE KEY
The verse makes teachability begin exactly at the edge of what you can see.
THE MEANING
You do not need complete sight to remain accountable; the verse gives a way forward when your own perception has limits. What remains unseen can be taught, and when wrong is revealed, the response is not to add more of it. Openness allows correction to begin now.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that a wrong you cannot see cannot be yours, or that change must wait until you can explain yourself completely.
THE ROOT
הוֹרֵנִי
horeni
GROWS FROM
ירה
To cast or direct; in this form, to instruct.
“show” in this verse is horeni. This root carries the image of directing or aiming; instruction points you toward what you cannot yet discern. תּוֹרָה (torah, instruction) and מוֹרֶה (moreh, teacher) preserve that sense of teaching as direction, not merely information.
ALSO GROWS
torah: Instruction
תּוֹרָה
It shares the root ירה (yarah), showing instruction as direction toward a path.
moreh: Teacher or instructor
מוֹרֶה
The teacher directs another toward what they have not yet seen.
לֹא אֹסִיף
lo osif
GROWS FROM
יסף
To add or increase.
“add no more” in this verse is lo osif. The Hebrew says, literally, “I will not add.” That names wrongdoing as something that can be continued or added to, and correction as the refusal to extend it.
ALSO GROWS
Yosef: May he add
יוֹסֵף
The name preserves the root’s sense of adding or increasing.
tosefet: Addition or supplement
תּוֹסֶפֶת
It makes explicit the root’s image of something added.
עָוֶל
ʿāwel
GROWS FROM
עול
To act unjustly or deal wrongly.
“crookedness” in this verse is ʿāwel. The word carries the sense of injustice or wrong dealing, a distortion of what is right between people. The verse names a specific wrong that can be stopped, rather than a vague stain attached to the person.
ALSO GROWS
ʿawwal: An unjust person
עַוָּל
It names one who acts from the same root of injustice.
ʿawlah: Injustice or wrong
עָוְלָה
It names the wrong itself, echoing the verse’s question about what has been done.
THE PATTERN
What remains unseen becomes available for change through an honest request for instruction.
Who can tell the wanderings apart? From what is hidden, cleanse me.Show me your ways, LORD; teach me your paths.But if any of you is left behind in wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all without doubling and without taunting, and it will be given him.THE THREAD
Show me your ways, LORD; teach me your paths.Job’s הוֹרֵנִי (horeni, “teach me”) and Psalm’s הוֹרֵנִי (horeni, “teach me”) share the root ירה (yarah, “to instruct or direct”). The same verb joins a request to reveal what is unseen with a request to be shown a path.
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