What Does Job 34:9 Mean?
For he says, It profits a man nothing that he should delight himself with God.
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 he hath said, It profiteth a man nothing that he should delight himself with God.THE KEY
The verse exposes the bargain beneath the complaint: closeness to God is dismissed when it cannot be counted as personal gain.
THE MEANING
The line gives voice to the claim that delighting in God profits a person nothing. It reveals an accounting in which relationship is judged by what it returns to the self. Because the claim is reported as speech, the verse keeps it visible as a claim, not as its settled verdict.
THE ROOT
יִסְכָּן
yiskān
GROWS FROM
סכן
סכן (sakan): to be useful, bring benefit, or profit.
“profits” in this verse is yiskān. Here סכן names usefulness or profit. Job 22:21 places the same consonants in a verb for becoming familiar with God; the echo does not make the words identical, but lets the sound of benefit and familiarity sit beside the phrase “with God.”
ALSO GROWS
yiskān: Be profitable; benefit.
יִסְכָּן
Job 22:2 repeats this verb while asking whether a human can profit God, turning the same measure of benefit around.
haskēn: Become familiar with; be acquainted with.
הַסְכֵּן
Job 22:21 uses a verb with the same three consonants, סכן, for becoming acquainted with God. This is a consonantal echo, not a claim that it derives from the profit verb.
בִּרְצֹתוֹ
birṣōtô
GROWS FROM
רצה
רצה (rāṣâ): to be pleased with, favor, or accept.
“delight” in this verse is birṣōtô. The root carries more than private enjoyment: it can speak of favor and acceptance. In this phrase, delighting in God has a relational shade of being pleased with God, which English can flatten into a feeling.
ALSO GROWS
rāṣâ: Be pleased with; favor; accept.
רָצָה
This verbal form gives the base sense beneath בִּרְצֹתוֹ: pleasure can carry the shade of favor and acceptance.
nirṣāh: Be accepted; be received with favor.
נִרְצָה
This form uses the same root for something being accepted, showing that the root can name favor received as well as pleasure felt.
גֶּבֶר
gever
GROWS FROM
גבר
גבר (gābar): to grow strong or prevail.
English “a man” sounds generic, while גֶּבֶר belongs to a family of strength and prevailing. The claim comes from the capable human too; strength alone does not settle what counts as profit.
ALSO GROWS
gāvar: Grow strong; prevail.
גָּבַר
This verb names the action behind גֶּבֶר, linking the word for man with prevailing.
gibbôr: Mighty one; warrior.
גִּבּוֹר
This same family names a mighty person, bringing a shade of strength and capacity into the otherwise general English word “man.”
THE PATTERN
Scripture repeatedly tests the claim that serving God is worthwhile only when it pays the person back.
For you say, What use will it be to you? and, What gain shall I have, if I am made clean from my falling short?You have said, It is empty to serve God. And what is the gain that we have guarded his watch, and that we have walked in darkness before the face of the LORD of hosts?For what does it profit a human, if he gains the whole world and is damaged in his living soul? Or what will a human give in exchange for his living soul?THE THREAD
Settle now with him and be whole; your yield is good.Job 22:21 uses הַסְכֵּן, “be acquainted,” with the same consonants סכן as this verse’s “profiteth”, a consonantal echo rather than an asserted derivation. The sound pattern brings usefulness and familiarity with God together, sharpening the question of how the relationship is being measured.
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