What Does Job 34:8 Mean?
Who goes in company with the workers of crookedness, and walks with wicked men.
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
Which goeth in company with the workers of iniquity, and walketh with wicked men.THE KEY
The Hebrew moves from a bond to a walk: company is not a backdrop but a direction.
THE MEANING
Here, belonging has a direction: a person is joined to those who do harm and moves alongside people marked by wickedness. The verse presents company as more than proximity; it is a shared path.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a person can join themselves to harm while remaining untouched by its direction.
THE ROOT
חֲבֻרָה
chaburah
GROWS FROM
ח־ב־ר
To join, bind together, or associate.
“goes in company” in this verse is chaburah. The word translated “company” carries the sense of joining or association. The verse describes an attachment to those who do harm, not just their accidental presence nearby.
ALSO GROWS
chabar: To join, couple, or associate.
חָבַר
This verb shows the active joining contained in the idea of company.
chaver: A companion or associated group.
חֶבֶר
A companion is someone joined with another, making the bond in this verse part of its meaning.
לָלֶכֶת
lalekhet
GROWS FROM
ה־ל־ך
To walk, go, or move along a path.
“walks” in this verse is lalekhet. The Hebrew word for walking also means going, so the verse makes companionship movement: the person is moving alongside the people named. The bond and the path reinforce each other.
ALSO GROWS
halakh: To walk or go.
הָלַךְ
This is the root verb behind the movement described in the verse.
holekh: One who walks or goes.
הוֹלֵךְ
This form pictures a person in motion, underscoring that the verse describes a shared course.
THE PATTERN
The company a person keeps can shape the path and character they share.
Flourishing is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the way of those who miss the mark, nor sit in the seat of the scoffers.The one who walks with the wise becomes wise; the one who grazes beside the dull is broken.Do not wander; bad company rots good habits.THE THREAD
He has shown you, O human, what is good. And what does the LORD seek from you, but to do justice, and to hold fast to faithful love, and to walk low with your God?Micah uses the same Hebrew root for “walk” to describe moving humbly with God. That shared root opens Job’s verse further: walking with someone carries a direction, and the companion changes the path.
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