What Does Job 36:24 Mean?
Remember that you make great his work, of which men have sung.
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
Remember that thou magnify his work, which men behold.THE KEY
Remembrance brings the scale of what is already in plain sight into focus.
THE MEANING
God’s work stands before you in what people can see; remembering draws it into present attention. To magnify the work is to let its scale come into view, not to make it exist.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
What is familiar and widely seen must be ordinary or small.
THE ROOT
זְכֹר
zekhor
GROWS FROM
זכר
zakar
Remember, call to mind.
“Remember” in this verse is zekhor. This root’s family includes both a memorial and the act of recalling or mentioning. Remembering brings the work out of the background and into present attention, where its scale can be seen.
ALSO GROWS
zikaron: Remembrance; memorial.
זִכָּרוֹן
A memorial makes remembrance present and visible, echoing the verse’s call to attend again to what people behold.
mazkir: One who recalls or mentions; a recorder.
מַזְכִּיר
This form brings something to mind or into speech, showing how remembering can give visible work renewed attention.
פָעֳלוֹ
pa'olo
GROWS FROM
פעל
pa'al
Do, act, perform.
The root names doing and enacted activity, so “work” carries the sense of action rather than a detached object. What people behold is the visible result of action, and remembering holds the action and its result together.
ALSO GROWS
po'el: One who acts; a worker.
פֹּעֵל
This branch names the agent of action, keeping the work connected to the one who does it.
pe'ullah: An action, deed, or work.
פְּעֻלָּה
This branch names what is done, illuminating the visible work the verse asks the reader to magnify.
THE PATTERN
Repeated attention lets visible work disclose a scale that familiarity can hide.
Tilt your ear to this, Job; stand and discern the wonders of God.Great are the works of the LORD, sought out by all who delight in them.For the unseen things of him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, grasped through the things made, his ageless power and divinity, so that they stand without a word in their defense.THE THREAD
I murmur over all your work, and murmur over your doings.Job’s “work” and the Psalm’s “work” share the root פעל (pa’al), naming enacted work. The Psalm shows attention taking the form of meditation and speech, extending what remembering begins.
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